As many of you know my buddy Waldo works at the gun counter at the Cabellas in Maine. When reading this post where I mention the general ignorance of firearms law of the general population he responded with this:
As for people being largely ignorant of local and federal regulations regarding the purchasing of firearms, I think even you would be surprised how many people from both Maine and New Hampshire call or stop in to ask us what they’ll need to purchase a gun. I can understand the Canadian tourists who wander by and ask just out of curiosity, but I get a surprising number of locals who don’t know if there’s a waiting period, or if they need a license, or what sort of documentation is required, &c. I also get a large number of people from Mass who either don’t know Mass state regulations, or have a selective memory when they walk into the store, since I’ve had several who wished to buy an AR or have a Glock shipped to their local FFL.
I think anybody who has stood behind a gun counter has experienced all of this and more, and most people like myself who can lose an afternoon milling around the gun shop shooting the breeze when they only stopped in for a box of .22s and some cleaning solvent, have heard most of that.
Now the hilarious side of it is that most of the anti-rights advocates have no idea what their local laws are, or what the laws in other states are. I suspect even some of the highest paid shills don’t even trouble themselves much with the petty details of the subject they make their living at.
That being said, these are also the majority of the voting block. They don’t know what the laws ARE! They don’t know if you need a waiting period, or if you can buy such-and-such a gun, or even if carry is legal, or what is required to get a permit, or where one can and can’t carry.
When various foolish laws come up the pike, these people have no frame of reference, and no idea what is reasonable and unreasonable. This is why we need to engage the public. The advantage of this is GUNS ARE COOL, and GUNS ARE FUN! So we don’t need to bore people or scare them. Just engage their interests and help create people friendly to the cause.
That’s excactly why like you say we have to keep in the fight and promote that gun ownership is a good thing .Also try to keep up and inform the customers of the laws and talk about any new laws trying to be passed.
I think it would be an interesting experiment to list many of the current firearm laws in a poll — asking people which do they think we should enact — which would go toward reducing ‘firearm related violence’.
Do this in conjunction with asking if they favor more or less gun control.
How much you want to bet that the majority who favor gun control would not know must of the current laws?
“Shoulder thing that goes up.”
(Lol out loud to “no frame of reference”)…. Donnie, were you listening to The Dude’s story?
YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT, DONNIE!!! 8)