Second Amendment March

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

Greetings, all -- I was at the March, yesterday. That is, I was at the real one on the Mall, not the spinoff across the river.  A week or two ago, in a discussion of Tea Partiers, I had a brief dialogue with squidb0i  about the 2A March. He said that in the absence of credible threats to gun rights, the 2A March was simply a front for "teabaggers".

With that in mind, I kept a conscious eye out for TEA Party type signs, pamphlets, handouts, etc.  Attendance was in the high hundreds, maybe over a thousand. I wandered around and saw most of the crowd at one time or another. There were 2-3, maybe 4 signs that could be interpreted as TEA Party related.  There was one sign for the John Birch Society, back in the back. There was one religious nutjob, and a couple of Third Way whackos. That's it, out of a LOT of people. Everybody else there was attending to promote gun rights.  

There was a certain amount of mockery directed at outfits like the SPLC, mostly by people like Nicky Stallard of the Pink Pistols, and Kenn Blanchard aka Black Man With A Gun(tm).  The SPLC had apparently labeled a number of the organizations there as "hate groups", including Oathkeepers.  Nicky pointed out that it was pretty stupid to call 2A advocates racists or homophobes, considering that she and Kenn were speaking.  All in all, a good time was had by those attending, and I got to see and meet some of the icons of the gun rights movement.  I even got to give Dick Heller one of my empty-holster flags: an L-shaped piece of red posterboard, with a sticker showing the DC flag and "Disarmament Without Protection". He was amused.

Comments

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

For the sake of argument, I'm fine stipulating to your observation that there was no tea partying going on at your demonstration.

That said, I have to reiterate some of the spirit of squidb0i's response by asking what issue, exactly, do Second Amendment advocates see at the FEDERAL level that warrants demonstration? Despite the run on ammunition sparked by what can only objectively be called completely unfounded fears of coming gun restrictions, the Obama administration has not remotely endeared itself to the gun control community (http://www.bradycampaign.org/media/press/view/1214/), and seems entirely content to leave the question entirely up to the courts, state and municipalities to sort out.

Simply put, your fight isn't with the federal governmet at this point -- it's entirely with states and cities.

Why were you folk gathered in Washington?

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

To some extent, it was to remind the Feds that they'd better behave themselves. Let's also remember that Obama hasn't exactly been pro-gun, either. He's appointed a rabidly anti-gun Supreme Court Justice, and his Cabinet is full of anti-gun-rights people. In addition, there's a lot of anti-gun people on the other end (of the northwest part) of Pennsylvania Avenue. Some of those Congresscritters sit fairly high up on some committees. Granted, Obama is smart enough not to blow political capital on gun control, at the moment. The most important thing to remember is he hasn't done anything, YET.

At the rally, a lot of the speakers actually did make the point that we needed to be active and vigilant, at the local and state level. We're making progress (outside the PRK), but every year we have to fight off some bad stuff in the state legislature.

There were also 2A March rallies all over the country, in state capitals. The Richmond one was a week ago. At that one, of course, there wasn't any of this "leave your guns at home" nonsense.

[paft.livejournal.com]

To some extent, it was to remind the Feds that they'd better behave themselves.

...or what? You'll shoot them?

A gun is not a picket sign.

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

... Or we'll vote their asses out.

Freedom comes in 4 boxes: Soap, Ballot, Jury, and Cartridge. You open them in that order.

[ETA] Note that at the actual 2A March event, which I attended, nobody was wearing guns. There were a lot of empty holsters, some of which had signs in them or stickers on them. No guns.

[paft.livejournal.com]

So if an election and/or a court case don't go the way you want, you start shooting?

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

More like, if the government starts rounding people up for camps; or they try to pull a Katrina and start going door-to-door confiscating people's guns for no reason; or a president loses an election, declares martial law, and refuses to step down. That kind of thing.

[paft.livejournal.com]

How about a candidate loses an election, stops a vote count, and gets appointed by the Supreme Court? Don't remember you guys making a point of carrying guns to public events back then, or while Bush was legalizing torture and eliminating habeas corpus and attorney-client privilege.

Do you think that suddenly concentration camps, gun confiscation, or a repeat of 2000 is imminent? Why?

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

I don't think that concentration camps, etcetera, are imminent. The actual probability of such things is pretty remote, and I hope it stays that way. I'd really rather just vote assholes out of office, and fix the problem that way.

Re: 2000, several organizations went back and recounted the Florida votes after the dust settled down. Bush won the recounts. Re: the Patriot Act, etcetera, I don't hold any brief for Bush & Co either - I'm not a right-winger.

At the state level, I DO carry guns to public events on a regular basis, and have done so for many years. Every January, MLK Day is Lobby Day in Virginia. I and several hundred others go down to talk to our legislators in Richmond.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Re: 2000, several organizations went back and recounted the Florida votes after the dust settled down. Bush won the recounts.

No he didn't. Using most legal criteria, Bush lost in the count of all the legal votes in the Florida. The only one he won was a count confined to the recount that Gore had requested. Bush lost the popular vote, and should have lost the electoral vote.

I DO carry guns to public events on a regular basis, and have done so for many years.

Why?

[fleaplus.livejournal.com]

> Aaaaaand there you just went into teabagger/conspiracy theory territory.

Were you responding to 3fgburner or paft?

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

Probably responding to me. See my answer to Exiled on this. I used those as examples of how bad things would have to be, to justify armed rebellion. I do NOT think that any of those things are likely. Ergo, I don't think that armed rebellion is likely.

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

I didn't say it was likely. For that matter, I don't think Obama is stupid enough to try that shit. I said that was how bad things would have to get, to trigger armed rebellion.

Since I've been carrying a CPR card, I've replaced 2 or 3 CPR masks that reached expiration dates. The odds are thousands-to-one, perhaps millions-to-one, that I'll be in the right place and right time to save someone. I still carry one, and don't plan to stop carrying one.

Likewise, the things I do to remain eligible for a gun permit, drastically reduce the odds that I'll need to use it. I don't drink, I don't use drugs, I don't do illegal stuff (beyond a bit of behind-the-wheel mischief, and I pays my tickets when i gets 'em). This means that I don't generally have to go to places where people get shot a lot, and don't hang out with the types of folk involved in shootings. Barring a random mugging, I'll probably never have to use a gun in self-defense. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop carrying.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

...if the government starts rounding people up for camps...

Where were you guys for Gitmo?

...or they try to pull a Katrina and start going door-to-door confiscating people's guns for no reason...

Where were you guys when that Katrina door-to-door thing was happening?

...or a president loses an election, declares martial law, and refuses to step down.

Good luck going against a military force who is now used to fighting a guerrilla army. You don't even have decades worth of Russian explosive stockpiles to work with.

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

Gitmo: Given that the people who went there were, in the main, violators of the Laws of War, they could've been taken out and shot instead of sent to Gitmo. I'm talking about things like the Japanese-American internment camps in WW II.

Katrina: I belong to two of the organizations that sued New Orleans to get people's guns back. Which, by the way, NO is still in contempt of. I also belong to the group lobbying for the law, passed in Virginia, that outlaws gun grabs by municipalities now.

Military vs Guerillas: http://www.oathkeepers.org.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Given that the people who went there were, in the main, violators of the Laws of War...

No, they were predominantly American citizens who happened to be brown, and unlucky foreign bastards whose neighbors turned them in for easy bounty money because the previous administration was eager for shlubs to pin something on. If they were so guilty as you claim, they would have been tried and convicted years ago.


Which, by the way, NO is still in contempt of.

So since they're still doing, when does step four of your ROE (http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/501019.html?thread=35855387#t35855387) kick in? Do you wait five years after every threat to liberty to actually do something?


Oathkeepers? That's who, not how. As in, how are they going to fight tanks and helicopters? And the whole point of this entire thread is people reacting to things that are factually not there. I don't trust the Oathkeepers to reliably interpret reality when it comes to what the government is doing.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

"Yet" indicates that you think he's likely to try some significant gun control legislation.

What might that be? Because as I linked, he's earned no friends from the gun control left.

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

I'm a firm believer in Murphy's law, as applied to politics. Possibilities are AWB II, microstamping, serialized ammunition, "smart gun" requirements, or a "gun show loophole" bill. Or, someone might come up with an idea even stupider, and convince Obama it's a good one. Again, this probably wouldn't happen until after 2012, if he gets reelected. The time to start watching for it is now.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I really don't get it -- "There's zero evidence the administration wants my guns so I'm going to be sure to remind them not to go after my guns"?

What do you do in response to things the President actually does?

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

There's evidence. The frigging AWB is still in the Democratic Party platform. It's also buried on the White House web page under "Urban Agenda". I will trust Obama on gun rights after (a) he signs a major chunk of pro-gun legislation that's not attached as a rider to something he wants; and (b), he states publicly that he was wrong about guns. When he said, "I'm not going to take your hunting rifle", I heard, "I'm gonna kiss up to the Fudds by promising they can keep their walnut-stocked Bambi-zappers". Let's not forget the guy's voting record in Illinois.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

So.....

At a time when Supreme Court rulings make gun rights more secure than ever....

And Congress hasn't passed any sgnificant gun control provisions since the so-called assault weapons ban and that was allowed to expire...

And the current administration has earned an F from the leading gun control advocacy groups...

You prefer to believe there's "evidence" that gun control is coming?

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

I'm saying that there's ample reason not to let our guards down. Gun-rights activism is like playing Whack-a-Mole. New stupidity pops up, you squash it like a bug before it grows. Look at Obama's record in Illinois. Look at Clinton. Look at Sotomayor's record. Look at Holder. They haven't had an epiphany of gun-rights awareness. They're still anti-gun, and they're in a position to do something if/when they get around to it.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Doesn't "Whack-a-Mole" usually entail waiting until there's an actual mole to whack?

At the federal level, gun rights have never been so secure in my entire lifetime. You're talking like the administration is a little puppy whining in the corner just waiting for a chance to snatch up guns while the actual advocates of gun control are calling them jerks for doing nothing.

You got no mole, but you're still whacking.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

DC is a city. What practical use is there of carrying rifles or even handguns to rallies in a city? Because of the nature of cities, the concentration of population and closeness of buildings, it is next to impossible to know where a bullet is going to end up. The gun owner may find himself under a charge of manslaughter or endangerment if the bullet does not end up where expected.

BTW I'm not against guns, I own a few, but I live in the exurbs. Municipalities should have the right to their own laws given their particular situation and issues.

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

The point of carrying a handgun to a rally in a city, is the same as that of carrying a handgun anywhere else in a city. In other words, you're MORE likely to need one in a city, with its higher crime rates, than you are out in the burbs. Of course, this being DC, I was stuck with knife, pepper spray, and a walking stick. My holster only held an L-shaped piece of foam-core posterboard, with a sticker:


Yes, you do have to worry about your backstop and stray rounds if you defend yourself with a gun, whether you're in a city or not. So, (a) PRACTICE. (b) Aim. (c) use hollowpoints.