Last week, it came to our attention that the local lefty alt-media was shilling for the DFL meme that anti-gun Representatives felt “intimidated” by the presence of all the gun owners – people with carry permits who’ve passed criminal background checks, and are thus most likely less apt to resort to violence than, well, the Representatives and Senators on the panels – in the audience.
I feel I should respond to this.
I’ll neither confirm nor deny that I have a carry permit, a handgun, or permission to carry in the Capitol complex. If I do, I would never carry openly, primary out of deference to the warped sensitivities of the ones complaining; “pick your battles”, I always say.
But I’ll urge you, gun-grabbing DFL legislator, to be intimidated.
Be intimidated by the fact that I, like most of the pro-Gun Rights people I know, know more about the issue than you do. Be intimidated that I make the anti-gun, pro-gun control argument better than you, and better than Heather Martens, for that matter – and can then turn around and destroy it. With facts, history, the law, and a lot of style.
Be intimidated by the fact that I, and most of the pro-Gun Rights people I know, take that superior knowledge out to my fellow MInnesotans, one by one, and win them over, just as we have been for 25 years now.
Be intimidated by the fact that I am one member of what was, 10 years ago, one of the most amazing grassroots political movements in Minnesota political history, the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance which, with no help from corporate donors or Rockefellers or PACs, started rolling a big heavy rock up a very high, steep hill in 1995 – and won the issue in 2003, playing a key role in flipping the House of Representatives along the way.
Be intimidated by the fact that GOCRA, and other gun rights groups and the people they represent, are coming back bigger and tougher and more focused than ever before.
Be intimidated by the fact that our movement adds more people every day than will ever show up at a gun control rally, and that every one of those people understands the issue better than any of the anti-gunners, and most of you legislators as well.
Be intimidated by the fact that we have energy, savvy, and the grim determination to crush you, rhetorically speaking. We’ve been through this before. We’ve run the marathon – the seven-year battle to enact Shall Issue. You’ve run the sprint. Who’s going to be still up and standing and fighting in a year? Two years? Four years?
My gun – if I have one, and if I’m carrying it? That’s literally, figuratively and statistically the least of your worries.
But be comforted by that being uninformed won’t keep your pet legislators from voting for your legislation.
Unfortunately, while their logic skills may be weak, most seem to be able to do basic math.
Have any DFL legislators or staffers actually gone on the record to say they felt intimidated?
“An armed society is a civil society” – author Robert Heinlein, “Time Enough For Love.”
They’re “intimidated” by the fact that there are now about 120K permit holders in MN, and the number is growing quickly.
Actually, I think Heinlein’s quote was, “An armed society is a polite society.”
Politeness would be a violation of free speech for the orcs, though.
All the inflammatory rhetoric and meanness (intimidated, crush, big and tough, destroy) in this post. Why, it’s enough to make DG NAUSEATED!
Along those lines, I posted a wonderful pic on FB the other day. The caption: “You find it offensive….I find it funny….that’s why I’m happier than you.”