It takes salesmanship to change views. We (gun owners) have a sellable position, and victimhood ain't it. Call me naive, but I change minds when I talk to moms in tennis shoes... I talk about their vulnerability and their protection. And I am a normal looking chick who doesn't blame them for having fear or preconceptions about guns. I take them shooting, and they end the day on my side. I have done that many times over.
Excellent. This is a very good technique that works well. If have often used it myself. I have taught many hundreds of people to use guns safely (professonaly) about 1/5 of them women. I applaud your efforts. This is one way that we can change minds. As you have found, my experience is that once they have been to the range and actually fired a firearm, their whole attitude changes.
I don't think being hyper-sentive if this guy might be a right wing militia dude will win any votes to our side. If you think the media is selling a bogus image of us and them being the same thing, then work to dispel it, is all I am saying.
Your attitude here shows how much influence the media has already had. What is a "right wing militia dude?" You do realize that "right wing militia dudes" are far more law abiding than most of the rest of the country, don't you?" Timothy McVeigh and Nicholes were not "right wing militia dudes". They were kicked out of militia meetings they attended.
Remember that the OldDominantLiberalMedia created the "right wing militia dude" image, with a lot of help from the racists at the Southern Poverty Law Center during the Clinton administration. It is also much easier for you to say that we should not "look like this stereotype" when you are not male. I think it is very healthy for white males to call the media on this.
15 years ago, the OldDominantLiberalMedia kept saying that the 2nd amendment only applied to the militia. In response, a number of local groups started organizing militia. Within a very short time the media response changed. Now it was not militia that had the right to keep and bear arms, it was "the state government".
I have been part of a considerable effort to educate reporters about firearms. A pattern quickly developes. A reporter is anti gun, based mostly on ignorance. With quite a bit of effort , the reporter is educated, and becomes neutral or slightly pro freedom. The reporter then loses their job.
After this happens a few times, you realize that it is not simple ignorance at work. It is the OldDominantLiberalMedia that is vociferously anti freedoom and anti-gun. It is built into the philosphy of the people who own the OldDomiantLiberalMedia.
Take a look at how many people control 90 percent of the OldDominantLiberalMedia. Lets see... Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, AP, Time Warner, Disney, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN. I haven't mentioned Fox because they are part of the new media. That is just 10 organizations, and even they are intertwined. So we only have 10 people who have to have essentially the same world view and the same interests, and voila! you get the same viewpoints on every television show and in most of the papers.
The owners pick the CEOs who pick the editors who pick the reporters. They are all chosen for the proper philosophy. If your philosophy changes, you are usually out, unless you have developed enough audience that you are valuable on your own (very, very rare). This is why I concentrate on shrinking the OldDominantLiberalMedia market share and on developing new media such as Freerepublic. That is where the future and our hope lies.