Re: good read on why good people need semiautomatic firearms and high capacity magazi
Well...there it is. We know what's coming, or at least what Feinstein is proposing. It's an "assault weapons" ban, except this time around, it's insanely strict. The standard for an "assault weapon" has now been reduced from 2 features to 1. Standard-capacity magazines have been banned and everything must now be under 10 rounds. Grandfathering is included, but now requires complete and total registration with the ATF, just like NFA items. Transfers of these weapons, even the grandfathered ones, will become illegal. It's an AWB on steroids.
The proposed bill is so incredibly restrictive that, in its current form, it's politically toxic. In its current incarnation, it will not pass even the Senate. However, this bill will hit committees, go through dozens of iterations, and eventually get watered down to something more-politically palatable (perhaps a 1994-style ban). The good news: I think even a watered-down version of the bill can be killed in the House.
To pursue that end, I’ve started this thread for all of us to discuss what we can do to fight this thing. There needs to be some serious organization here, there needs to be a concerted effort that all of us join behind, and we need to stop pussyfooting around in all of these other threads as we quake in our boots in fear. We need to strike while the iron is hot, take the initiative, and shut this thing down before it can even begin. If we all work together, I think we can.
(NOTE: I don’t claim to know nearly as much as you guys about firearms, but I do know about politics, and I do know this is winnable. I hold (a small) public office in my home state, and I worked 2 years for a pro-gun, Democratic Senator here. I’ve been engaged in multiple campaigns and will be running for State Representative within the next 2 years. I’m not an expert, but I think I have some helpful insight to provide the community.)
Listed below are the steps and strategies I see working to win this upcoming battle. I’ll keep the thread updated with other pieces of advice that you guys provide, turning this thread into a sort of crowd-sourcing project to fight any future gun control. Please, come in with a positive attitude and be prepared to FIGHT whatever’s coming. It’s going to require a lot of effort, it’s going to require a little bit of time, but if we all come together and work (and work HARD), we can come out on top.
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Step 1: Develop a winning attitude. Before we can even begin this fight, we need to stop being a bunch of defeatists. We need to convince ourselves that an AWB can be shot down, that the 2nd amendment doesn’t have to die, and that regulation/confiscation/bans are not necessarily inevitable if we do our part. That sense of inevitability is not only bad for our spirits, but it’s also discouraging for ourselves and everyone around us. It makes us admit defeat before the fight has even started, makes us less likely to try to do something, and shortens the lengths we’re willing to go to fight this thing. Overall, a defeatist attitude makes everyone less likely to fight and fight hard. After all, if the battle is already over, why should we and those around us even bother trying in the first place?
So please, be positive about this thing, even if it’s just a front that you have to begrudgingly force yourself to accept. That positive attitude will help push all of us forward, and most of all, inspire those around us to follow our example. If people know the fight is winnable, they will actually fight.
Step 2: WRITE, EMAIL, AND CALL YOUR CONGRESSMEN! Despite being #2, THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ANY OF US CAN DO. Like I said, I worked 2 years for a Senator in my state, and this is what they most heavily rely on to make their decisions. They don’t strictly rely on media polls, because not all of those people vote. They don’t strictly rely on protests, because protests don’t necessarily represent their constituency. The #1 most influential factor in a congressmen’s decision-making process is the simple “Yes/No†tally total that they track internally based upon the letters, emails, and calls they receive. The people taking the time and effort to write/email/call are most likely going to vote, and these people are also a part of the congressman’s constituency, making their opinions far more important than whatever is happening in the media. At the end of the day, if we can show that there are far more active gun-rights supporters than anti-gun advocates, we can force the Republican House to hold.
Since I collected these letters, emails, and calls for a total of 2 years, here are the strategies I’ve found most effective for making your voice heard:
Know who your congressmen are! You have 2 Senators and 1 Representative to contact. Both of your Senators and your Representative can be found using the tools located in the top right of
The United States House of Representatives · House.gov and
U.S. Senate. The NRA also has a great setup for finding your legislators here.
Write, email, and call: do all 3! Every single one of these actions will help encourage your congressmen to vote your way. The way these things are tracked is via a computer system that each and every letter/email/call is recorded into. Space your communications out, because if you do them all in one day, all 3 may be counted as only 1 correspondence. Cumulatively, this should only take you 15 minutes, and like I said, it’s the most important thing you can do. Please write, email, and call your congressmen and tell them to vote NO on any gun control! By the way, if you don’t know how to contact your congressmen, Google their name; all their information (including a form that allows you to email them right on their website) should be on their website. Remember, you can write, email, and call multiple times! (NOTE: letter and email examples provided below to save you time)
Before saying anything else, tell your congressmen exactly how you want them to vote. In literally any correspondence with your congressmen, “Vote NO on any gun control, especially assault weapons bans, magazine capacity limits, and/or registration†should be the first thing you say. If you write a letter, include a subject line below the congressmen’s address stating “RE: Vote NO on any gun control, assault weapons bans, magazine limits, and/or registration.†If you email them, write in the subject line of the email “Vote NO on any gun control, assault weapons bans, magazine limits, and/or registration.†If you call, the first thing you should say is “Hi there. I’m calling to tell Senator/Representative __________ to vote NO on any gun control, especially assault weapons bans, magazine capacity limits, and/or registration.†Why? Because you’ll be speaking with the congressmen’s staff, not the congressmen themselves, and these staffers get hundreds of letters/emails/calls per day. Receiving these letters/calls tends to be very tedious, and if your message is long and hard to follow, the staffers may not accurately record your opinion. Make your opinion clear. Make your opinion short. Say right up front how you want your congressmen to vote, and it will make it easier for the staffers to get that message across.
Make your comments party-neutral! Where I live, all of my congressmen are pro-gun. However, of the 3, 2 are Democrats. Going on a rant about liberals will make it likely that your message gets ignored, so don’t do it. There are a surprising amount of pro-gun Democrats in this Congress, so please, keep your communications party-neutral. Stick to the message: no gun control, no assault weapons bans, no magazine capacity limits, no registration, guns don’t cause crime, etc.
INCLUDE YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS. Some staffers refuse to record your opinions without a name/address, because without your name/address, they can’t tell if you’re a part of their congressman’s constituency or even from the United States. If your letters/emails don’t include a name/address, chances are they’ll be thrown away or deleted before being recorded. Do yourself and all of us a favor: tell your congressmen who you are and where you live!
If possible, please write your own letters. Every congressional office handles its reporting duties differently, but many of them don't honor "form" letters (copied letters that people sign and send in) in the same way they do letters individually written by concerned citizens. The letters provided below may be copied and signed if you'd like, but please, if possible, write your own letters. They carry more weight.
Don't send letters to congressmen or officials that don't represent you! Some people literally write letters to all 535 congressmen, but the problem is, if you're not a part of a congressman's constituency, his or her office staffs will then forward the correspondence to whoever does represent you. This means that office staffs become annoyed by gun-rights supporters, and even worse, the people who do represent you will receive 500+ copies of the same exact letter. Please, only write to your Senators and your Representative, and if you must, the President/Vice, the Senate Majority/Minority leaders, and the Speaker of the House. Not stepping on people's toes (read: congressional staffers) is crucial here.
Step 3: Get other people to contact their congressmen as well. Our voices alone may not be enough. Have your family members, friends, and favorite-gun-shop employees contact their congressmen as well. The more voices we have behind us, the more likely we are to shut this thing down in its tracks. Some tips to encourage people to do this:
Have pre-printed letters on-hand. If someone is moderately pro-gun or apathetic, they probably aren’t going to take the time to write a letter themselves. However, if you have some pre-printed letters on-hand that only require someone to sign their name/address, you’ll greatly increase their likelihood of joining the cause. On these pre-printed letters, do NOT include the address you are sending the letter to, despite that being a standard practice for letter writing. Doing so would mean you’d need at least 3 unique letters for each person to sign (one addressed to Senator #1, one addressed to Senator #2, and one addressed to their Representative). Rather, draft a single letter whose recipient is left unaddressed, of which you can have your friends and family sign 3 copies. (NOTE: copy of pre-printable letter provided below)
Offer to send their letters for them. Just as people may be less likely to write their own letters, they probably won’t send the letters you give them, even if they went through the trouble of filling the letters out. Offer to send the letter for them. Make it as easy for other people as possible. Make it so that all they have to do is sign their name and address 3 times, and that’s it. You’ll do the rest.
Ask your local gun shops if you can leave pre-printed letters at their checkout counter. This is a great way to gather up even more support for our cause. Offer to leave stacks of letters at the gun shop that their customers may sign/address, and don’t forget to remind the gun shop employees that you need customers to sign/address 3 copies. Then, offer to collect the letters at some regular interval (for example, every Friday night) so that you can send them out.
Encourage people to write their own letters. I know I just said to carry pre-printed letters on-hand, which you still should do (sending in a pre-printed letter is better than no letter, after all), but if you can get someone to write their own letters, it's always the preferred route for the reasons listed in Step 2.
Step 4: Join the NRA. UPDATE: After David Keene's appearance on Meet the Press (linked below), and with favorable endorsements from Larry Vickers and other reputable sources, I am confident that the NRA is on our side this time. Additionally, I've read about how the NRA's pressure in 1994 did help influence votes, and that's direct from the congressmen that were in office at the time. Simply put, becoming an NRA member is incredibly important and necessary at this time. They do not favor an AWB and deserve our support. They have a huge influence on how votes are cast in Congress, and with a more robust funding stream, they can do more. (I just hope that Wayne LaPierre is locked in a closet and never allowed to speak at an interview again. )
Step 5: Sign the White House Petition. You can find it here, created by ASH556 here on M4carbine.net. It's the only petition I know of that's grounded in solid, philosophical arguments and doesn't cheapen itself by blaming the problem on drugs or video games. Granted, the Obama administration will ignore it, but it's still an important action nonetheless. After all, similar petitions for an AWB have reached 400,000 signatures and have received significant media attention because of it. Having a comparable number of signatures would help balance the appearance of the debate so it doesn't seem so one-sided against us.
Step 6: Educate yourself on the arguments. Being educated on the arguments against gun control can only help the cause. It will help you convince people to sign letters, it will help you win support during Facebook debates (maybe not from the person you’re arguing with, but from the people watching the argument), and it will make you a better overall supporter of arms ownership. Rather than list all the arguments here, I’d rather provide links that do this job for me (though if you want to read some of the common arguments, they're listed 2 posts below). If you guys have any suggestions, please post them and I’ll add them!
Gun Facts (in my opinion, the #1 source on facts supporting arms ownership)
Stefan Molyneux on Gun Control (great statistics and points to memorize; I advise most to stop watching at roughly 18 minutes, though)
"Why not renew the "assault weapons" ban? Well, I'll tell you..." (an article written by a liberal against gun control)
"Gun Control Tramples On The Certain Virtues Of A Heavily Armed Citizenry." (a Forbes article giving a terrific explanation of the foundational philosophy of the 2nd Amendment)
Larry Pratt debates Piers Morgan (Larry (of GOA) takes Piers to task with facts)
Penn Jillette on The Wendy Williams Show (Penn dispels ignorance with a cool head and great points we should all learn)
David Keene on Meet the Press (Keene (of the NRA) does a great job of talking about the issues against a biased host)
Jesse Ventura talks to Piers Morgan (nothing you haven't heard before, but Jesse's demeanor is something to think on)
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If we stop acting like a bunch of losers, start writing our congressmen, engage those around us to do the same, and become more-active, more-educated advocates for arms ownership, I really do think we can win. We have a Republican House that we can convince to stand by us. After all, we’re gun owners: we often vote single issue, and we rarely forget who slighted us. The same cannot be said for the other side. Politicians know this, and we just have to work together to remind them.
Always remain vigilant, however. The other side is working just as hard as us, if not harder. We cannot relent on this until this AWB (or whatever it spawns) is killed. We cannot stop writing, calling, getting the community involved, and educating ourselves. This needs to be a near-constant effort, and it needs all of us to be on board. We can win this.
Are you ready for the fight of our lives, ladies and gentleman?
(NOTE: please feel free to contribute letters of your own! If you post them through some sort of electronic-filing service, I'll do my best to include a link to it here. The more options we have, the better and stronger our message will be!)
Letters for email/website submissions
(copy/paste the letter, make sure to pick "congressman" or "congresswoman" and delete the other (or better yet, write their name), and write your name/address at the bottom)
GENERAL PURPOSE
Quote:
Dear congressman / congresswoman,
I am writing to you today to request that you vote against any gun control measures that may arise in response to the tragic events in Newtown, Connecticut. I am deeply disturbed by what happened on that day, but I know that the solution to such violence will not be found in enacting more gun control measures. Whether future proposals include restrictions on private sales, more regulatory hassle, or absolutely unacceptable “assault weapons†bans/magazine capacity limits, I urge you to stand strong with gun owners and defend our 2nd amendment, naturally-entitled rights. None of these measures will reduce violence in the United States and will only further degrade we the people’s ability to defend ourselves from whatever threats may come.
In such trying times, it is important to remember that not only are we as Americans entitled to own the same weaponry as those who may oppress us, but also that having this ability is not a threat to our safety. Switzerland, for example, has a population of 6 million and is estimated to have 600,000 fully-automatic and 2 million total firearms in private hands, yet has almost no violent crime to speak of. Even here at home, murders have been decreasing at a consistent rate since the 1990s (even after the 2004 sunset of the 1994 “assault weapons†ban), and in 2011, more people were killed with fists and kicks than by semi-automatic rifles!
It is apparent, then, that arms ownership does not cause violence, and that the solution to violence in the United States is not one of gun control. I’m not sure what the solution is to tragedies such as these, but I am sure that it is not banning types of firearms or limiting magazine capacities. Should you vote against firearms owners and the rights of Americans, we will ensure that 1994 repeats itself and that those who voted against us are not re-elected. Simply put, voting for any sort of gun control, whether big or small, will see someone else elected in your seat. Rather, voting against gun control, taking a principled stand against emotional scaremongering, and protecting Americans’ rights will earn you the loyalty and support of millions of voters.
Please, I urge you, do the right thing: oppose any gun control measures. It is what’s best for this nation and best for your future representative career. You have millions of voters behind you in this effort, and turning your back on them would strike a blow to American freedom for generations. Support gun owners, support the people, and support the Constitution.
Yours in freedom,
(name)
(address)
AWB-SPECIFIC
Quote:
Dear congressman / congresswoman,
I am writing to you today with regards to legislation proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein; specifically, legislation that calls for the ban of so-called “assault weapons.†I am urging you to vote against any and all gun control, especially assault weapons bans, limits on magazine capacity, and/or compulsory registrations of firearms -- all actions called for by Senator Feinstein’s proposal. These are wholly unnecessary measures that will do nothing to curb the amount or serverity of violence in the United States. Rather, the only thing these measures will do is diminish the ability of Americans to defend themselves from criminals and oppression while further restricting our 2nd Amendment, naturally-entitled rights.
It is important to remember that Senator Feinstein’s plan has been tried before in the United States, and both the National Research Council and Department of Justice concluded that the 1994 “assault weapons†ban could not be linked to any decrease in crime. Additionally, Senator Feinstein’s foundational reasoning is questionable, as semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 are the least used weapons in crime; more people are killed every year by fists and baseball bats than AR-15s! This is on top of the fact that banning magazines with capacities greater than 10 would do nothing to stop criminals; bad guys would simply carry more magazines than they did before.
On the other hand, possessing AR-15s and standard-capacity magazines as citizens is imperative, as these tools can be used in self defense. For example, when we hear glass break in the middle of the night, the firearms we reach for in self defense are often loaded with only a single magazine. Ensuring that single magazine is carrying as many rounds as possible is CRUCIAL for defending ourselves and our families, especially if there are multiple assailants involved (misses will occur, and more than one round will need to be used per assailant). Additionally, owning AR-15s and standard-capacity magazines is an important part of the citizenry’s ability to resist enemies both foreign and domestic.
Please, stand by the American people and do not repeat 1994. This will cost you your seat in Congress, just as it did many representatives then, and it will set American freedom back for generations to come. Take a principled stand for firearms owners, defend our freedoms, and protect the Constitution. This will earn you the loyalty and support of millions. Thank you for listening, and I pray you make the right choice.
Yours in freedom,
(name)
(address)