Be an Activist.. and Get on the Right List
We’ve all heard this sad song before.
“I would like to help.. but I don’t want to be on a list.”
Sometimes, we’ve even heard it from our friends. The full story goes something like this.
“I don’t want to be politically active.. or buy a gun for self-defense.. or buy ammunition.. or sign a petition online.. because I could end up on a government list somewhere.”
This timid attitude of keeping a low profile is inconsistent with current facts. To use the contemporary vernacular.. I’m calling bullshit on the tinfoil hat theories.
I understand the feeling. I don’t want the cops at my door because of a gun I bought. None of us want to get another tax audit from the IRS because of a political contribution we made. I understand and I agree. The sad fact of the matter is that politicians have already weaponized government. Government is now a tool used to punish us whenever it suits the politicians. That is true today. It is true here and now. Those abuses are why you should become politically active and join me on “the list”. The reason is simple. Staying off the list doesn’t matter any longer.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re on a list once the US government can blatantly ignore human rights. Our guns have failed once government slips into lawless thuggery. Power hates being constrained. Big Government politicians want to take our guns and our privacy to silence us. That is why the very acts we use to push our government back into its proper and limited roll are the same activities that get us onto government lists.
Call it a badge of courage, but get on “the list”.
-Become active with a political party. I don’t care which one. Fight from the inside to make the political party act responsibly. Help them listen to what you say rather than what the political consultants say.
-I want us armed for a simple reason. It isn’t so we can wage war on our government. It is so our government won’t wage war on us. I want the politicians to keep talking and never again use the police as a weapon on innocent people.
If government abuse seems too theoretical, then let me offer you a different sort of bargain. As Tom Gresham asked, “How much would you pay to make a government SWAT team go away if martial law were declared?” Would you pay $500.. or would it be more like $50 thousand for them to leave you alone? To the guy who doesn’t want to be on a list, the time to pay is now. Don’t wait until the government thugs are at our door.
The good news is that we can buy our freedom. It is available on an installment plan. All it takes is regular payments of our attention, our money, and our political involvement. We need to pay now in order to have freedom and a limited government in years to come. Join the National Rifle Association. Join the Second Amendment Foundation. Join Gun Owners of America and support the Crime Prevention Research Center. I have. You should. You’d rather be on their mailing list than the governments. These organizations help provide the political restraints that keep our government in check.
If you want to be involved, but don’t want to be on a list, then contact me, and we’ll work a deal. 😉 I’m on the government’s lists already, so I’ll forward your money. Or, is the real problem that you like to complain and are simply too cheap to contribute?
elmer fudd
~_~_
Rob
SlowFacts 
Being on “the list” is the low hanging fruit of excuses that low effort gun owners – LEGOs use explain away why they won’t help. It’s a defense mechanism of sorts, and in most cases the list or fear of the list is not the actual reason. The real reason can vary but the bottom line is that the person using this excuse is telling you they cannot help you, but in reality they will not help you. Spend some time trying to pierce this veil and you will uncover further resistance even if you dispel every excuse that is list related.
Think of this like breaking up with someone who lacks the courage to say outright “I just don’t feel the same way about you”.
There are some ways to win over a very small percentage of these people. There are reformed LEGOs out there who have gone on to be great activists. The same way you introduce say, competition shooting to casual shooters, or a machine gun shoot to casual or competition shooters, or bullseye shooting to hunters, or silhouette shooting to bullseye; etc
You introduce gun owners to the political processes. How do you get gun owners to take up new disciplines? You introduce them to the fun aspects, relate the known to the unknown so they can “get” some common skillets and understand what they need to develop,
Each shooting discipline grows starting with the enthusiasts who get the ball rolling and ramp up the “sport”, our peeps spread the word and say to their buddies “hey, you gotta come shoot this new match, it’s awesome”. Some of them won’t stick with it, some of them will take it up casually and a few of them will take up this new discipline as new enthusiasts. We need to do the same at the grassroots level.
Grassroots needs to sow these seeds, and there are a lot of ways to do it. holding or sponsoring shooting events, picnics, and put into this effort what they want to get out of it. Lobbying is fun, especially with a few hundred of your fellow members of a group, all gun owners sharing a common goal.
don’t fixate too much on the “I don’t want to be on any list” discussion. Very few who speak such will convert to activists. We will grow many more and more effective activists through state grassroots groups using new and better methods for engaging gun owners in the various political processes.
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Hi, Dave Y.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. You’re right. I can’t convert a committed LEGO. I can motivate those gun owners on the margin who find LEGOs repulsive. Tom Gresham’s question was insightful.
Rob
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