The meeting was close to home, in my suburb of Chicago. The ISRA had sent out an email alert, asking for members and interested persons to show up. I went.I saw a lot of good people there. It seemed more pro-gun than anti. The speakers were horrible; at least during the Q&A session after the presentation. I was outside, freezing for the presentation part of the meeting. Some observations; we need to be positive and intelligent in our conversations. Outside, there was a pro-gun ISRA guy who was arguing that the Sandy Hook incident wasn't real; that it was a staged event. Inside, an older, angrier ISRA member, when one of the speakers, Dan Goodwin, was speaking about innocent kids being murdered, yelled out "How many of your family members have had abortions." again.  Another guy was outside, passing "Boycott Chicago" stickers. again.This kind of talk and negative message does not advance our cause. I admit; I yelled out a few times also, I can't stand liars and repeaters of false statistics. At the end, a young guy stood up, clean cut, in a military nylon flight jacket, and stated that he'd served our country, been to war for our country, and said we needed the 2A because our country was, at the current time, at a greater danger of falling into tyranny than at any time in our history. The crowd stood up and cheered. I thanked him outside for his service. You could see he clearly was humble and sincere. I tell you this, I will be at every one of these events in the future. I'm bringing my kids. I always felt like, for opsec, it was better for me to have as few folks as possible knowing my stance on guns. Now, I realize that is a mistake. I must advance our cause to everyone, in a thoughtful, measured way. I invite everyone else to join me.

We all have to come out of our shells and face this threat. Typically gun owners try to stay off the radar, but right now we all need to pop up and make an enormous signature.

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Could not agree more.

the antis are nothing compared to our own...

Agreed.  I too have made more of an effort this last month to put a positive face to gun ownership etc...

...in the past I would never (for OPSEC) do this.  We are beyond that now!  Good for you.

I also agree that we must put a positive, intelligent and calm foot forward when addressing anti's!

Agreed

every little bit we do to bolster it in our daily lives adds up!