Posted on 05/10/2003 7:24:26 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Most Gun Owners Disgust Me! "Typical gun guy: Full of ideas, full of criticisms, full of crap!" By Nicki Fellenzer For the first time since I began an active role in the Second Amendment rights movement, Im disappointed with many of my fellow gun owners and thoroughly disgusted with a number of others. In the past few weeks we have seen the untimely demise of two crucial partners in the fight to restore our Constitutional rights. TWO in the past month! Sarah Thompson, the Executive Director of the Utah Gun Owners Alliance (UTGOA) called it quits last month. And just last week Citizens of America a national no-compromise gun rights campaign announced it was ceasing operations. Most gun owners in this country will shrug their shoulders and say, So what? Ive never heard of them anyway. Most gun owners will go about their daily business, secure in the knowledge that their NRA membership is current and their rights are secure, because the NRA is out there fighting for them. Most gun owners dont feel the loss of these two vital colleagues in the fight to protect their rights. At least not yet. But I can guarantee you one thing: If we, as gun owners and Second Amendment rights activists, do not change the immediate course of our current path, those of you who shrug off these two devastating losses will soon feel the oppressive grip of tyranny on your shoulders. Because the loss of UTGOA and Citizens of America has a much deeper significance than just the ceasing of operations of two gun groups. Their loss is directly linked to the unwillingness of gun owners in this country to get involved, to volunteer their time, to open their wallets, to vote, to stand up for their cause and to make any significant sacrifice in the fight to protect the Second Amendment. To quote Sarah Thompson,
when we've asked for people to attend committee hearings, even just one per session, most of the time no one has shown up. When we've asked for volunteers to help with gun shows, political conventions, and other events, we've gotten only a couple of volunteers at best. Most discouraging, Sarah continues, UTGOA supporters have been almost entirely unwilling to get involved in electing pro-gun candidates, which is the single most important key to success. · Last year KeepAndBearArms.com ran a poll asking gun owners if they would contribute money to fund a Second Amendment Supreme Court lawsuit that would once and for all settle the question of individual vs. collective right to keep and bear arms. Poll results indicate that 1,800 people answered the question. Those 1800 respondents replied they would donate a combined minimum amount of more than $133,000. Since KeepAndBearArms announced that Silveira vs. Lockyear is headed to the Supreme Court, maybe $25,000 in donations has trickled in. · Overwhelmingly, the gun rights community regularly votes for Republican candidates, despite the fact that Republicans are just as responsible for the erosion of our rights as Democrats are. Its a reflex. Its tradition. Republicans are generally viewed as more pro-Second than Democrats, but even so Gun Owners of America, a no-compromise national gun group that rates your legislators every year on how they vote to support your Second Amendment rights, has given an "A" rating to only three senators in the 108th session. Sixteen senators have received a B or B- on the GOA report card. The rest warranted miserable C and below ratings when it comes to defending your rights. And yet, there are 51 Republicans in the Senate currently, which means 32 Republicans who vote against your freedoms, against personal responsibility and against you. How many of these oath-breaking losers got your vote in the last election? · On April 3, 2003 PAX, a stridently anti-freedom group, raised a half a million dollars in one night to support its odious cause. IN ONE NIGHT! Those involved included Steven J. Heyer (President & COO of Coca-Cola), Michael D. Drexler (CEO of Optimedia), actor Richard Belzer (Law & Order), Paul Shaffer (The David Letterman Show) comedian Mario Cantone (Sex and the City) and Joy Behar (The View). A single live auction raised $70,000 that night to help the effort to enslave you to gun control. · Citizens of America couldnt get 10 percent of you to contribute $10 per year. They actually thought they could pull off $10 from 10% of the 75Mil gun owners? I'm on line every day reading something shooting related. Mostly in the various forums I belong to. And I never heard of them. Never heard of them until right now. It's a free market, and the market has decided to kick one out. As far as I'm concerned that's a good thing. It is NEVER a good thing when another organization dedicated to fighting for your rights closes its doors. It means theres one less group out there to counter lies, misinformation and outright subversive behavior that threatens your freedoms every day. It means there is one less group out there fighting for you. And the more pro-freedom activists give up the fight, the easier it will be for the anti-freedom leeches to suck away your freedoms. Just think about that next time you sit down at your computer and read news that yet another anti-rights bill has passed with barely a whisper of protest from gun owners. Think about Sarah Thompson, Brian Puckett and so many others who have fought for so long for you and your rights with a bare minimum of support and hardly any publicity. Think about UTGOA and Citizens of America who have toiled endlessly to preserve your freedoms, without fanfare, with little if no publicity and no credit. And then remember the National Rifle Association, which has many times supported unconstitutional legislation to limit your Second Amendment rights and claimed credit for victories other, less well-known groups have worked hard to achieve. And finally, go ahead. Email me. Tell me how Im wrong about gun owners. Tell me how you, personally, and your friends have done so much to support the fight for freedom. Tell me how its not your fault that were losing the most effective fighters in our cause to apathy, stinginess and ignorance. Tell me Im pious, clueless, holier-than-thou and preachy. I spend no less than 30 hours per week working to preserve your freedoms, despite the fact that I have a family, a full-time office job, and Im a student working on my degree. I write this column for free, when I generally get $600 for one article of this length. I have donated my April salary from my part-time job to the Silveira case, even though we live paycheck to paycheck in this house. Im not bragging. Im simply telling you my level of commitment, so you dont think I dont practice what I preach. So please I urge you to contact me. I urge you to curse me, yell at me, contradict me and tell me Im full of it. The facts speak for themselves. If you want to change those facts, get off your ass and do something about it. Nicki is a US Army veteran, who spent nearly four years in Frankfurt, Germany on active duty at the American Forces Network. She is a former radio DJ and news anchor and a Featured Writer and Newslinks Director for Keepandbeararms.com. She is also a contributing editor to the National Rifle Association's newest monthly magazine, Women's Outlook and writes occasionally for the Libertarian Party. She resides in Virginia with her family. We are also proud to have Nicki as regular contributor to Armed Females of America. Copyright © 2003 by Armed Females of America. All rights reserved. Permission to redistribute
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Their loss is directly linked to the unwillingness of gun owners in this country to get involved, to volunteer their time, to open their wallets, to vote, to stand up for their cause and to make any significant sacrifice in the fight to protect the Second Amendment.It could mean that, I suppose. It could also mean that these two groups were ineffective or incompetent.
I hope this doesn't turn into a "gun" thread, because it's more important than that. What this guy is screaming about is true for every kind of activism on the planet. Ask anyone who has tried to start a Free Republic chapter, and you will hear the same noises. There are always four or five people who show up every time and bust their butts, and that's kinda where it stays for most efforts. If you're lucky, a new one shows up about the time one of the others burns out. I don't think anything can be done about that; it seems to be real life. Once in a blue moon, one of these things somehow acquires escape velocity, and becomes the NRA or Americans for Tax Reform. But that is so rare that we should value these things when they happen. Free Republic is such a thing. It has achieved escape velocity. It never seems like that during a fundraiser, but in fact we usually hit the number, the site goes on, and even gets bigger. And it is continually spinning off little activist cells like Second Amendment Sisters, FairPress.org, chapters all around the country, etc. Maybe one day some of them will hit escape velocity as well. We can hope. But it is really tough to make one of these go. That so many fail should not surprise us. |
I see by your home page, all you can do is talk.And type too, apparently. Learn to infer from known facts. It's a transferable skill.
You, basically, dismissed everything she wrote, without knowing anything about either group.Yes I did. Simpler, saner hypotheses suggest themselves for why these two small, completely insignificant groups failed. Blaming the entire population of gun owners is as risible as it is indefensible.
Is Keep And Bear Arms.com and Gun News Daily, also completely insignificant groups?Only to the degree that significance is reducible to effectiveness.
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