Not only are the anti-gun supporters unhappy people, but Thirdpower muses over how it seems that are also REALLY lonely.
One antigun blogger who I will only link indirectly (Follow that link for a solid feel on the character of this individual), recently posted this older article, and this quote really struck a chord with me.
Though most voters back gun control, says Norquist, their support doesn’t move them to the polls. “But for that 4-5 percent who care about guns, they will vote on this,”
This is a common explanation is a commonly touted one by the antis. “The Majority of Americans want more gun control…but those people aren’t as motivated by the NRA to vote on the issue.” Occam’s Razor comes to mind. Does this solution make sense? Are there a very small, but highly dedicated group of gun rights supporters who totally swamp the polls every year, while people who strongly want more gun control leave the space blank, or don’t show up?
I’ll also note that The lamentation of countless gun rights supporters ganging-up on a singular anti-gun bigot is the rule, not the exception. Every anti-gun blog either blocks all comments, or has some form of arbitrary moderation. Yet the anti-rights blogs that allow comments have the vast majority of their comments from the pro-gun side, and many documentations of comments submitted, but never published. Pro-gun commenters can be counted on one hand. Of those commenters only a few dare to go to pro-gun blogs to discuss their point…and when they do their actually ability to engage in debate is STRONGLY lacking.
Of course it could be that the anti-rights types aren’t big on the interent. The vast majority of their support are aging baby-boomers who aren’t as big on the blogs and social media as the younger generations…well except this same thing happens in real life too. Like a dozen protesters showing up for an hour to a three-day pro-gun convention of 70,000. Note that there is no equivalent to the NRA annual convention, or the SHOT show, or Steel Challenge, or Bianchi cup, in the anti-gun world. There is no equivalent of a gun show, or a gun club in the anti-gun world. Hell there’s not even an equivalent of our little regional get-togethers, because the vocal anti-gun supporters are so thinly spread throughout the country that all the antis I know of are spread hundreds of miles apart.
And their acts are worth note. Joan Peterson rings a “Remembrance Bell”, Baldr and the Million Mom March push plywood box cars.
Meanwhile talk to anybody who teaches a conceal carry course, or a hunter safety course. Many of them had to expand their class dates just to make their waiting lists shorter. Gun shops and gun makers are one of the few industries that are doing BETTER these days than they were the years before.
If gun control has support, I just don’t see it.
I’m hoping for the day that the Antis are as big and have as much relevancy and support as the Women’s Temperance Union has today.
In a middling town in between two major cities — both with several ranges and gun clubs, we have our private range with over 2,000 members. We have been adding about 150 people per year.
We have over 20 people show up each month for our Board of Directors meeting. We have between 70 to 150 people a month show up for our monthly dinner/business meeting/program. Our annual awards dinner has over 300 (often closer to 450) people attend it.
And there is no shooting activities of any of those; so it sort of rules out the “only came for the shooty fun” aspect of attendance.
And we are one of many clubs and ranges in the area.
In the last 3 years, I’ve only seen or read about 50 people being involved in an anti-gun protest in the metroplex area. The metropolitan area has over 6.6 MILLION people living in it. Surely if Anti-rights cultists were protesting in large numbers it would make the news, right?
Wee’rd:
I don’t disagree with anything you say, and you said it very well. But I want to jump on this from a different angle:
“The Majority of Americans want more gun control…”
Even if that was true, I don’t give a flying f–k at a rolling doughnut. If the majority of Americans wanted to deny black people equal rights, we wouldn’t say that was okay. If the majority of Americans thought it was okay to make Catholicism the state religion, and imprison anyone who practices Islam or Christianity, we wouldn’t say that’s okay.
Rights are not subject to a majority vote, and we shouldn’t let Peterson and Baldr suggest that they are.
Nope a VERY good point. I tend to take the pragmatist route vs. the hard-line moral/philosophical line just because the end-result is the same, but one path is much easier to convince the nanny-state fans, who are the people who we need to get on our side.
For example, The TSA is an embarrassing abuse of the 4th Amendment, and potentially the cause of airport cancer clusters everywhere.
Still the people who DO support the TSA are kinda soft on the science of ionizing radiation, and on the meaning on the 4th.
But they’re willing to give up their freedoms for some safety…and when you point out that the TSA can’t manage to catch a terrorist, or find concealed weaponry, the nanny-staters aren’t as warm about getting their nuts groped.
And in the end the end-point is the same. TSA disbanded, and me carrying a 1911 on the plane. 🙂
I think a lot of the antis claims are false that while American’s are buying guns in record numbers, the amount of gun owners are dwindling. I just don’t see it. Most of my friends are 20-somethings, and I have very few friends who do not own guns. I live in a very small area, and most of my friends I’ve known since kindergarten, so I don’t think it’s simply because I’ve gravitated towards gun owners.
I think this is just a matter of people engaging in more private sales, and declining to participate in ownership polls. I could be wrong, and my anecdote is only one story, but I think gun ownership is alive and well for the next generation.
The sad part is how blazingly anti-social the anti-rights cultists are… Two of them used to recently live in easy driving distance of one another, yet have they ever actually met? Nope. One of them live across the ocean, but frequently visits very close to another one of them, but have they ever actually met? Nope.
Unless they are members of “gun control” extremism groups, they damned near avoid each other like the plague.
On the other hand, I had dinner with a fellow pro-rights advocate just yesterday on my drive home from Dahlgren, and we organize how many get-togethers every year for various geographical areas of the country?
‘Course, standing up for people’s rights tends to be a social event… Looking for any and all ways to abridge them? Not so much.