Don’t set out to change the world. Begin with your own sphere of influence.
I read and watch videos of everything I can get my hands on about guns…gun training, gun control, gun stupidity, Alec Baldwin, everything. The more I read and watch, the more I am becoming a pro-gun activist.
For me, the biggest game changer came in 2004 when I became a biological father for the first time. My little girl was the apple of my eye, and I vowed that no harm would ever come to her…at least not on my watch. Fast forward to today, and she is an 19-year old sophomore at the local Penn State branch campus.
I realize that at some point in time my protection watch will end and she will be on her own. Either as an upper class man at Penn State’s main campus, or after graduation, in the real world. So, she needs to be educated and trained on protecting herself. And that has happened.
My daughter is my assistant, my “Vanna” so to speak, in my training classes. She periodically comes up to me and asks if we can go to the range, to which I always agree, for some father-daughter bonding time. And it doesn’t hurt that the range is very close to some restaurants that we can patronize after our range visit for some wings and beers (well, me beers, her iced tea). I recently bought a new handgun made by Walther for women. I asked my daughter to try it at the range, under the supervision of the range safety officer (RSO). She refused, until the RSO gently coaxed her to try it. She loves shooting this gun now. And when I am home cleaning my guns, my daughter frequently picks up this unloaded gun and practices her training exercises. And in my classes, it is my daughter, using this gun, who shows students how to handle it, rack it, load it and unload it (using snap caps [dummy rounds]).
I realized that my daughter and the rest of my family is my sphere of influence. And so are the students of my classes. These folks, too, are my spheres of influence. These one-on-one relationships I have for four hours in my classes that are the most powerful mechanism for changing points-of-view on gun rights.
Here are the steps I would suggest that people like me dedicate their time and energy to as a pro-gun advocate:
- Learn history – I bet there are numerous people out their who have never heard of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge and the atrocities they and other oppressive regimes have done to their respective citizens. Learn how racist gun control here in the U.S. disarmed innocent, law-abiding black citizens.
- Learn your Constitutional rights, and know what the government is permitted to do or prohibited from doing. It is hard to be a pro-gun advocate if you don’t know what you are advocating.
- Know the lunacy of current gun control laws, such as “gun free zones” or “assault weapons bans”, and that every gun law is unconstitutional. Referencing my daughter and every other college student under 21, the fact that 18 – 21 year olds cannot purchase guns is insane. My daughter is a college commuter. What would happen if she had en evening midterm only to be attacked or raped walking to her car following the exam. As it stands now, she can only pepper spray the attacker. Stupid f*cking law!
- Join pro-gun organizations. The best, by far, is Gun Owners of America. As soon as liberal anti-gun governmental agencies attempt to restrict your gun rights more, GOA is right on top of it with filing law suits. A recent example is regarding the idiot mayor of Philadelphia, Bill Kenney. Instead of forcing his leftist District Attorney to crack down on violent criminals rather than issue no bail arrests, he attempted to institute an executive order which would have affected only law-abiding gun owners. His idiotic order prohibited guns in the city’s playgrounds, which went against Pennsylvania’s “preemption” law. So the GOA filed suit the following day. A week later, a judge sided with GOA. The other great thing about GOA is they make it very easy for its members to contact your state and federal legislators, to sign petitions, and to ask them to vote a specific way. Simply click on a web link, enter name and address, and an email is automatically sent on your behalf. Believe it or not, being bombarded with constituent emails does work.
- Bring friends along. Bring one or more friends with you to one of our training classes. Many of our student are liberals who “see the light” or people who are not yet gun owners but are thinking about becoming one. Because in our view, a liberal is simply a conservative who has not been attacked at gunpoint.
- Don’t worry about what you can’t control. Okay, so you don’t have the budget of the anti-gun liberal media. Do what you can at a grass-roots level. Talk to your family and friends. Invite me to your home. Come to one of my many one-hour lectures.
- Attend gun shows. I attend every local gun show I can. No, I don’t have an unlimited budget to buy guns. But I go to gun shows every chance I get because for the time I am attending the shows, I am surrounded by like-minded pro-gun advocates. Everyone needs an ally in their camp, if for no other reason than to commiserate how stupid our government is.
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