need a emial/newsletter to tell use where to protest the protesters and what not that is close by our area.

that way,  100 anti guns will be overcome by 1000 pro-gun people.

best to deal with the media hype first.

Precisely.

This doesn't have to be a big money operation or anything like that. It simply needs to be a medium for gathering up all the bits and pieces of relevant info that is scattered all across the web, contained within various publications, etc and putting it in one place. At that point, it will be the job of each specific group partner representative to return to their primary organization/group/publication/business and share this with all their people.

That is the problem that needs to be addressed. Lots of people belong to the NRA. But many of those same people may not have a clue what the GOA or Citizen's Committee is working on or planning. The folks on Glocktalk may have little or no idea what we here at arfcom are working on or doing. Important news reported by one may go unreported by another. Our goal will be to have people representing all such organizations, including shooting groups, hunters, 2A organizations like the NRA, the various message boards, dealers, etc together in one location, where all news and info can be shared and spread. That way we can keep the entire firearms community informed of nearly everything that is going on, in a timely manner. No single group or organization working alone can achieve this.

can't remember where I saw it first but...

"I'll keep my guns, my money, and my freedom, you keep the change!"

I'm posting a link to this on Calguns.net. Californians have been behind enemy lines for a long while and know how to fight. I'm sure Calgunners will be up to joining the fight.

What do you need I will be there.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Thats why we need private forums , people can deal directly with others in thier own home town. Get the aforementioned phone list going,ect. keep it simple and able to react VERY quickly when one of the asshats visits your area. Like I said , out of nowhere put 3-500 people in thier face and never let up.

This is EXACTLY what we need.
We need to be flooding their phone lines, in-boxes, and mailboxes with opposition of any anti-2A bills.


We can all bitch and moan of arfcom, but those in congress will not know how fucking mad we are until we let them know in a very eye-opening manner.

This is not a game we're playing––this is us protecting the bill of rights.

Another simple way of increasing our impact dramatically when dealing with politicians:

Having all pro-gun groups united and working together for the same cause is one thing. But picture the impact we as individuals can have on pending legislation by doing nothing more than writing a simple letter to the editor of our local newspapers at the appropriate time. It could go down something like this.....

A member of the panel learns a threatening bill has been introduced in the House. The alert goes out to all participating organizations to begin a letter writing campaign. But it doesn't stop there. At the local level, all of us will also take the time to sit down and write a letter to the editor in our own small town newspapers. In those, we provide a brief overview of what is happening and urge gun owners to write their respective congress critters. Included will be the local representative's contact info, as well as that state's senators. So instead of just limiting the letters and phone calls to active participants in these various gun groups, you also include those gun owners who may belong to no particular organization, yet still value their 2A rights. So your one letter may end up resulting in 2, 10, 20, 50 or even 100 additional letters and calls that otherwise would not be written or made. Your submission to your local paper gives the concerned reader the info on the nature of the threat, how to address it and where to send their thoughts. To steal a line from the Geico commercials, it makes it so easy even a caveman can do it. That is important. There are enough democratic representatives and senators in gun friendly states to shoot down any anti-gun legislation, if only the proper amount of pressure is applied by gun owners. These people want to keep their job. If their constituents are flooding their offices with letters, calls and emails, that is going to send them a very powerful message that to keep that job, they need to vote against anti-2A garbage when it surfaces.

There are literally millions of things that every single one of us can do. We just have to sit down, be creative, think and channel all of those scary thoughts about gun bans into something positive we can use to fight any such measures.

The only way to be political is to speak with one loud voice.  IM me if I can help in any way.

Charging Handle you have an IM

in

Count me in.

There was over 6000 people signed on this forum alone on election night. If just 1/3 of them united it would make a big showing.

I've been fighting for years for many issues regarding personal freedoms-may as well offer to help in whatever way I can.

This was suggested the last time the bill came up and it was started  on another site where people from all site could check in. However it didn't go far as the Organizers kind of stopped participating.

Plus The owners of Arfcom refused to work with the owners of another site, so you can't pass the buck here.

I think that if there is "news" etc. it should be our "the Members" responsibility to spread it. If EVERy person is a competent "Soldier" than one person can fall and the operation keeps moving forward. Dont expect Site Staff  or one Volunteer to implement anything that we come up with, if it's going to work everyone must have the ability to participate at virtually the same level.

Also donations to the NRA ILA and the GOA should be organized as they are already very established and have many resources.

I'm a technical guy so I can tell you how to interconnect.

As for the content, letters etc, not my bag baby.

Technically, it is simple to interconnect participating sites with news, links and the likes.

Even better, there doesn't need to be much communications between sites once a couple get together and get the ball rolling, boards will just do it and notify other boards of their existence (not even sure thats needed with our well versed member base). Everyone will aggregate.

Even better, our announcements and what not will end up on non-gun sites, like GOOGLE, where they get mega exposure!!!!

All a site needs is a little icon in some corner and a well regulated news section.

Everybodys doing it.

Really Simple Syndication.

Can't believe I'm the first to mention it. OK, so you heard it from me first, do I get a free button?

ETA: I don't consider myself a "gun nut" (or for that matter a house nut, or car nut, TV nut or any kind of nut but I own them all). We need to attract those that don't want to be called or labeled any kind of "nut", and based on recent firearms sales, there are plenty of Americans that care. Keep you eye on the "target". Critical mass is what's needed.

Some thoughts.


1. start a Saturday morning political meeting where you bring in those who represent your area of town. Your biggest hurdle here is finding a place that serves breakfast. We have found that breakfast meetings will get people out even on a Saturday. Bring in your local reps and even the Congress critters.Ask questions about all subjects.

2. Organize the local gun club and local hunters and have meetings to keep abreast of what is happening in DC

3. Personally visit with all of your reps.

4. Support with work and money those who support you in elections.

5. Consider running for office yourself.

6. As for the web sites they can provide a quick communication tool along with becoming a force themselves. A combined Industry and web site group would also help.

7. work to bring more into the hobby by having youth days or ladies days.

I think the mass communication (IM, e-mail etc) is a great idea to spread info.  

Think about this.  Nobody (well hardly anybody) keeps the A2 pistol grip on their AR.  We could do a version of "Send-A-Brick" and call it "Send-A-Grip".  I have at least 15 A2 pistol grips I could send.

We could do "Send-A-Shoulder Thing That Goes Up" too but that would be more expensive.

I'm in.
Please lets figure out how to begin quickly, I will start with letters,emails,phone calls today.
I seen Prefab letters yesterday any one have that link please?
This above is another reason we need to get organized, one stop source for our information.
I will donate my time as needed!

I'm in!

email me at [email protected]

http://ctsas.info

Let's get it going!

I personally think this is a GREAT idea.  These painballers, airsoft players are nothing more than future gun owners.  They have already proven to have an interest, we must help cultivate that!

As for the original idea, it's a GREAT one.  I think it needs to be a new forum that is strictly devoted to this with a moderator team made up of moderators from all the other major forums out there.  However, I differ in that I think it should be possible for anyone to join it as a regular member.  Obviously, effective moderation will be VERY important.  I think it should be limited strictly to the mission and to advancing our political agenda.  If a thread is started saying "which gun for ccw?" the thread needs to be deleted and the person needs to be privately referred to any of the "partner" forums for that discussion.  It needs to remain undiluted by random discussion.  I'm talking no gen talk section etc. just politics only and a new level of firemissions!

Also, we need our own media arm.  We need to make gun ownership look awesome and we need to show the risks of losing those rights.  We need excellent photography, video, bloggers, webcasts etc.  I'm a photographer and I'm not half bad, I would pour some serious time into documenting the movement and doing some media stuff for it.  I'm not all that awesome at graphic design but I can supply images for better designers to work with!

We should introduce ourselves to our freshmen members of Congress and the Senate in January, both in D.C. and our respective Statehouses to get aquainted. It may not be necessary to list all the pro-2nd orgs we belong to at first, just congratulate them on winning the election and show where we stand. I have two newbies to elected office, and my letter might be one of the first they open from a constituent.

MODS ADD A SUBSCRIBE OPTION!  I keep losing these post for some reason..     BTW  I'm in...   I work and have met a few the voted for Obama and are already rethinking thier actions after having talked with them about thier constitutional rights and Obamas position on them...    they are gun owners,   they have joined the NRA now.  and are planning out how to keep them.     Lets do this get organized and win...   I'm telling every one I know .  the idea about informing younger adults and getting them involved is an Awsome idea.  my younger family kids love it when I take em shooting thats all they talk about for week's afterwards...

Hey don't send gun parts. That may be perceived as a threat and will definitely spun that way by the anti-gunners.

I'm all for doing something this and willing to contribute but, I think we would be more effective if coordinated with/through existing gun rights organizations. Their experience and media savy could be very important. Also, lets not forget that organizations need discipline, they need a face and a voice(s) to speak for that organization and control the message, otherwise you can bet the media will choose to interview some backwards idiot in his "Kill em All and let God sort em out" T-shirt muttering incomprehensibly about his "cold dead fingers".  We can't forget that the ones we need to reach are not the believers, showing you have strength in numbers is great but it is more important to show that we are reasonable, educated, upstanding members of our community armed with facts to support our positions.

Being pissed off is not enough.

I am really glad to see that so many people are interested in pursuing this. Keep brainstorming. Some excellent ideas have been generated already and I'm sure the day crew will add many more once they wake up and find the thread. Hopefully some of the staff and mods will also find this thread and be able to tell us what role (if any) this site can take in the effort. At that point we'll be better able to start pinning down specifics and proceed beyond the planning stages.

Looking in that direction, can we start a list of all the firearms forums in existence? There has to be dozens if not hundreds out there. But I am only familiar with a few of them. Also, any shooting groups, hunters, or other organizations that have forums or websites would be good to add as well. I imagine it will take a while to reach out and bring everyone in on this once we figure out exactly what we want to do due to the size of the shooting community.

This is already being worked on

ETA : CH - I hit your IM back.

I am IN

Alright here's a contribution, all of these domain names are currently available:

www.SupportTheSecond.com
www.Support2a.com
www.SecondLiberty.com
www.2aLiberty.com
www.SecondSupporters.com
www.2aSupporters.com
www.ISupportTheSecond.com
www.TheSecondMatters.com
www.ConstitutionBelievers.com
www.GunRightsMatter.com
www.2aPeople.com
www.NoBanNobama.com

I'll keep up the hunt and edit in more as I find them.

Some old school inspiration


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ju4Gla2odw&feature=related

make this a sticky!

I am going to PM Texas_Mustang and get him in on this. He was instrumental in the Send-A-Brick effort and I recall he was the one who set up our private forum and the website back then. He would be great resource to lean on again. So I'll run this by him and get his input.

Great idea! I'm in.

And remember, FUCK OBAMA!

We start by introducing ourselves as guys from the neighborhood who live usual lives, support the usual pasttimes. We don't have to overwhelm them all at once about what gun ownership means to us, just that it's a Right like speech, religion, or being secure in one's own home.

Me too, I'd be more than happy to.

The traditional gun rights organizations are good and could be a help in this, but I think it needs to be more grass roots and it needs the ability to mobilize in the blink of an eye.  It also doesn't need to be held down by the need to generate revenue or be a force for a very long time.  It needs to be able to play it a little fast and loose I think if it wants to accomplish anything quickly.

Also, your 100% right about not looking like a bunch of stupid redneck hillbillies.  Anyone who is going to be public about their support about this needs to be able to articulate their position and point out it's benefit to ALL Americans, and they need to be able to do it while looking like the majority of America (ie: we need people from all walks of life of all races, and creeds as our public face).  This part all goes back to my media arm idea.

Nathan , I've already got the perfect guy for the job , Charging Handle and me have been talking about it already . But we could use several if you have anyone in mind.

Great ideas all around... this makes me smile, it really does.  I think one of the things that will get our cause noticed the fastest is FACE TIME with our Congress critters, and our Rep's.  ESPECIALLY the new ones.

ONE face to face is infinitely more memorable than 100 letters, I don't even know how many of them truly even read them.  

I wasn't around for the Send-a-Brick, but I would bet bricks were a lot more memorable than regular letters.  Same idea.  Something that sticks in someone's head, like a bad NSync song.

The climate may not be correct, but if we could find someone in the house that would introduce/co sponsor legislation based on the views of the collective... maybe even 2A incorporation?  Not likely to happen, but it would be nice to see.

Either way, count me in.

Send a Brick started just like this , Your in on day one for this one !!!

Yet another option for spreading information around quickly is via myspace. As ghey as myspace can sometimes be, a great many of us have a profile on there. I think I have upwards of 140 people on my friends list. And most all of them are republicans or moderate democrats who strongly believe in the right to keep and bear arms. This is yet another avenue all of us as individuals can use to spread the word quickly to our friends, no matter how spread out around the nation they may be. Again, it is a way to multiply what each of us can accomplish at the individual level. If every one of us who has a myspace page sends all our friends a message with details about future gun bans, who to call or write to make sure they don't pass, etc, many of them will forward them on to other people. Eventually someone will probably forward the same message back to you. It gives you a great deal of exposure yet doesn't cost a single dime.

Not being negative, but first we got to be able to have the skills to consulate 20 plus  "Barry is going to take my guns" threads into one.   I can only think about the water coolers conversations if one elected "leader" a week received 20,000 letters (all mailed on one day) each containing a single spent cartridge.   Not as a threat, but as something that is cheap, plentiful, and different then a piece of paper.

Unfortunately I really don't but I'm glad you do!  Most of the people I know/am friends with couldn't find their ass with their hands tied behind their back

Not sure what I can do, but I'm here.

Agreed. That is the reason for trying to get this effort going. If we can just get the people who are panicking and flipping out to actively start taking part in their own defense, not only will the Obama threads start to thin, but they'll actually feel a lot better about themselves and the situation. Nothing makes one feel so helpless as being totally dependent on others. That is why we must start depending on OURSELVES. Rather than just starting another useless "Obama! Oh teh noes!" thread, we need to be using that time and energy to actually do something to effect the situation in our favor.

Great idea.  I remember how successful the Send-a-Brick campaign.  Lets do the same.

Guys don't just right some random rep.  Find somebody that you can vote for.  Find out if they have a decent record on guns.

After you know this then make yourself useful.  Volunteer, Donate, Support.  Emails and letters don't mean much if they are from strangers who can't vote for you.

I'm leaving so forgive me if anything I say has already been covered as I don't have time to read the entire thread yet. I think we need to start another site headed up by the main moderators of this and other guns site. The purpose of the site would soley be to unite and inform gun owners. Absolutely no discussion of firearms other than in reference to a political action. A forum for just what letter writing campaign is at hand. A massive politic forum to voice opinion and get info out to the masses. A fund raising section. This is all off the cuff, so sorry if this in incomplete or is a stupid idea. Also, a forum with just printable material to post abroad (Gunshops, Gunshows, phone polls, ETC) We would need this to be as public as possible and the goal would be to have the highest membership level of ANY site on the net. Thus, we need to be unified and professional and ALWAYS act as such. This would get EVERYONE on teh same page to figure out what is happening to take away out rights and we could then bombard the proper political offices with MASS communication. This would be a great task to those who run the site and it would be greatly appreciated. This would be the only way we could truly untie to fight the ones that are willing to take away what we love so much. Thank you for your support and I'm Williedikker and I approve of this thread!

Just a thought, adding on the industry partners idea...and I guess it would be the industry partners who would have to spearhead this part of it...but how about getting some of the employees for these US companies on board?  The ones who make their living producing all of these products etc, and who stand to lose that, in addition the their 2a rights should another AWB or similar legislation pass..

Nah man, you're spot on. My whole idea revolves around finding every gun friendly group we can come across, inviting them to have a member or any number of members join us on a private forum, and develop a network and plans that will allow all gun owners across this nation to speak with one clear, united voice. We can't do that as effectively if we are operating as a bunch of smaller, fragmented groups.

BTW, another MAJOR group that just popped into my head is the folks at Free Republic. I'm sure most of those folks are pro-2A. But with that said, we don't have to limit our membership to right wingers only. Anyone who believes in the 2A and is willing to fight for it should be brought aboard. Republicans sending democrats letters and making calls or visits to their offices is one thing. Having fellow democrats and independents who like guns do likewise is another. It sends a powerful message. And the cool thing about this network is that we can focus exclusively on guns, without having to address other issues that might pit 2A supporters against each other (religion, abortion, the war in Iraq, the environment, etc). We'll ideally be a pure 2A group without necessarily having any political position other than supporting candidates who support our right to keep and bear arms.

I'll keep checking back on this thread throughout the day as I have the time. Please keep the ideas flowing guys and gals. I know there are some extremely intelligent and motivated people among us here. I am merely the guy trying to channel our energy in the right direction, but it will ultimately be someone else here who leads us in the fight, as there are far more capable people here than me when it comes to such things. But I certainly will remain involved and do any of the grunt work needed to make sure the effort is a success. I simply refuse to ever quit or give up.

I'm in.