They are inundating the national and international print, radio, and television media; they are testifying before Congress; and they are hiring lobbyists by the truckload. They dominate the public debate on gun issues and they are telling the world that they are speaking with your voice. If they are not, in fact, representing your views, why aren't you doing anything about it? Write a letter to the editor protesting that Wayne LaPierre does not speak for you, that you oppose measures a, b, and c, but you support alternative measures x, y, and z. If what you say is true and most gun owners are not as radical as the NRA, then there must surely be some nonprofit advocacy group out there that advances sensible gun control measures that do enjoy support from the gun community. So cancel your memberships to the NRA and support those groups instead. But that's not what the public sees. What the public sees is a quarter of a million gun owners joining the NRA within hours of the administration's proposals for improved gun control. What we see is gun enthusiasts cleaning out the shelves at gun and sporting goods stores, stockpiling guns and ammo. What we see are people like Ted Nugent and Alex Jones calling for civil war and claiming the support of vast armies of gun owners. Face it, the public image of the gun community sucks. If it's not representative, you should fix that, because it is you and your interests that these guys are claiming to represent.
The rest of the country can move forward without you. It will be a whole lot harder, take a lot more time and money, and will involve more stumbles and bad bits of legislation along the way. But slave owners never did come around to supporting emancipation and yet we still managed to abolish slavery despite their opposition.
= new reply since forum marked as read
