LINK

The short version is: Gun owners need to take advantage of the momentum and unity displayed during last week's Zumbo episode. We made lots of headway in showing the economic strength of the buying public when that buying public threatens to withhold money from companies that support anti-freedom causes, such as Mr. Zumbo. Companies took notice, and responded swiftly, on a SUNDAY, and after they repsonded positively, they were rewarded with an increase in customer loyalty and actual increase in sales (reported by Remington). We have power, if we unite.

We are attempting to do what we have never done before. Unite all who cherish the second amendment, all accross the internet. The internet is no longer a place that the old media, corporations, and politicians can look at with an elitist eye, looking down on the internet minions as mere amateur wannabes, blogs as illegitimate op-eds, and message boards as groups of sub-professional yahoos. The internet is the primary source of information and organization today, it is here to stay. We have shown what happens like never before, when the gun community flexes its economic muscle, and this was directed toward one who was presumably our own. Imagine when the blatant opposition attempts another ban, if we target their FINANCIAL SUPPORTERS and SPONSOR COMPANIES with the threat of boycot. It works.

While the NRA and GOA and other grass roots organizations do a good job at the political level, we as individuals can effect a similar pressue campaign on the commercial level, toward sponsors of anti gun corporations, sponsors of politicians who are anti-liberty, and media outlets who promote politicians against our constitutional rights. We can ake an impact, and people noticed for the first time that we wield a significant economic power.

What will be required is that we unite.

This means all gun boards and gun blogs.

This means we will have to lay aside our petty differences with other boards for the sake of the larger good. This means we here are Gunsnet must embrace our AR-15.com brethren that we have had differences in the past, as well as those at FALfiles, AKforums, Assaultweb, and you name it, all of them. We need mutual support and unity. All of the larger gun boards like those mentione, and Glocktalk, the Firing line, the High Road, AKforums, Falfiles, Sturmgewehr, Mosin-Nagant.net., the large C&R forums, Assaultweb, the Freepers, and any others I have forgotten. We will need to all join together, like we never have before.Thats a lot of grass roots people right there. We would all have to be willing to put aside petty arguments and disputes of the past, especially a few of the larger boards (we know who we are, I hope) with histories of antagonism. Can we do that? Can we rise above kindergarten spats and unite for a change?

We have official buy in from Gunsnet management here to do this, so the first step for our board is done, we need members from other boards to pass the message on. The more, the better. What we're going to need is a moderator level or above representative or two, maybe three, from all the boards who wish to unite, and lets see if we can hash out how to build a gun-board wide alert system to call for twice a month internet campaigns directed to selected anti-gun corporations and media, a Zumbo-pile if you will

What the proposal looks like right now is this (copied from the other trhead, please forgive some redundancy) ---


We set up a subforum or blog as "Effort Central" or whatever, the various representatives of each member board or group gets access to that subforum or blog, this "effort central" would be linked into the gun blogs and other boards (As owner of the now-dormant Headsbunker, I know all about it, still have Headsbunker, its just not active or linked to a domain). From there, or a message board that has the ability to broadcast an RSS feed, alerts go out to the gun bloggers with a call for action. The other key action call would be the same feed which goes out to all networked gun boards to populate a popup on all member forums for a number of days while the alert is active. Popups keep it in front of the people, the point was made earlier in this thread that a dedicated forum is going to be dead and forgotten, I agree. Hell, I forget that I posted in some of our own forums here because I check General and Gen Weaps, and my moderated forums, all out of habit. I forget to check the other subforums quite often, but would act if a popup was a new alert.

These alerts would have to be selected targets and not generated too frequently, maybe two a month, or it will get real old. I work on a team that has web usability and marketing gurus, trust me, no more than two a month on this kind of thing is perfect. Two a month will be enough to Zumbo-pile a corporate sponsor of anti-gunners at the rate of 24 a year, and with the blog community involved, it will inflate the numbers like mad.

Bloggers took down Dan Rather, thrashed Kerry, and bloggers and message boards took care of Zumbo.

Folks, media and information has changed drastically in the last 5 years, we people have far more say when we organize, and as you have read on responses and media articles concerning this Zumbo thing, and the responses to Rathergate, they old media just doesn't get it, they still think blogging and message boards are for amateurs and armchair wannabes. But the internet is the primary source of info today, and should be the primary tool for media and politician accountability.

This is the same thing the NRA and GOA are up to EXCEPT this idea is targeting the money at the grass roots level instead of lobbying and hammering on politicians. It can work.

I'm willing to manage the central blog if someone is willing to build a coalition of message boards. How we do this, I don' know, it would require some forum to open a dedicated sub forum for all the various representatives of each gun board and major blog to have a place to hash out targets. I can get the gun bloggers on board an effort that has half a dozen or more good sized, well know message boards cooperating to flood targets with mail and phone calls at each alert if I re-activate headsbunker and spend a month or two restoring all my old contacts and blogrolls.

What we would need FIRST is clarified by someone else in the referenced thread:

1. authoring a mission statement: clear and to the point. (volunteers?)
2. Formally asking the moderators of other sites if they would like to be on-board with it, agreeing with the mission statement. (volunteers?)
3. Having a group of moderators, perhaps one from each involved forum, be the arbiters of the final action.
4. Keeping it professional
5. selecting out targets for maximum impact

and

6. Set up a blog to act as the blogger's alert center. I volunteer to bring back Headsbunker for this purpose, but if there is a well known gunblogger out there who would host this that would be more efficient.




Please comment, add your constructive comments, see what holes can be poked in this plan so we can make sure it is workable, and lets do something we have not done before.

Awaiting volunteers and comments.....
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I'm sorry if it's a DUPE, I hadn't seen this here.