SgtToadette

Can you think of a better medium that would convey the message properly without being immediately shut down by a pseudo-pacifist, borderline hippie?

The statues aren't there because they hold any specific religious value, but rather because they represent peace and tranquility inherent in Buddhist thought. It's largely intended at a pacifistic idol. I've heard that quote before, and it's great to have, but it's not really relevant to my situation. I do appreciate your concern, though.

It's very possible that the 95% figure is true. Considering so many people don't apply because they know that they will be denied, therefore only people who require a permit for their job apply, and are consequently approved. Would anyone here apply, knowing that they'll be denied? I know I wouldn't. Nobody wants to risk having that denial on their record, especially when it's pertinent for future applications. If people applied with the same level of frequency that they did in a shall-issue state, then the numbers would very different.

This shouldn't be news to anyone here. The FBI data has presented this information for years, you just had to look for it and crunch the numbers. A lot of people are under the impression that gun violence is on the rise, when it is the reverse that is true. Be sure to save these resources, they may prove handy in the future.

I'm in a similar situation. I'm coming up on my 1-year anniversary of being a gun owner and things are pretty good. I come from a liberal family. I spent every night in high school watching Countdown with Kieth Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show (they still have a special place in my heart despite their obvious bias). I've never been to a Church service and my parents were afraid to let me play Pokemon. My mom is an activist vegetarian (as am I, minus the activist) and pseudo-pacifist. There are several Buddhist figures throughout my house. I knew just going up to my mom and saying "Hey, I want to get a gun" wasn't going to cut it. What I ended up doing was writing a concise paper expressing my thoughts. Yeah it's a bit corny, but by my judgement, it was the best medium I had to convey what I wanted to convey without being interrupted or shot down immediately. Clearly it worked, and while my mom isn't looking to go out and get her FPID, she's tolerant of my ownership. At her request, I don't keep any firearms loaded (though I do keep several mags loaded in very close proximity). She also requested that I take a safety class, which is really something every prospective gun owner should do. The approach that worked best for me was trying to normalize the activity and ask for tolerance. I've stated before that liberal-minded people tend to think of themselves as especially tolerant and open-minded. If you assert that they aren't one of those things, they tend to back-pedal immediately. I explained a lot of the misconceptions and even mentioned the forum here, making sure she understood that I'm looking to become part of a community of people and that I'm taking it seriously. I also don't think mentioning it nonchalantly is a good idea. The concept and practice of gun ownership is very serious, and especially serious to those who are anti-gun. Make sure you're treating the idea with the level of respect and seriousness it deserves. There is certainly a right and a wrong way to talk about guns with anti-gun people. Having been largely anti-gun myself for much of my life, I can attest to that. Be calm, have your facts in order, and encourage conversation. Explore their aversion to ownership and if you must agree to disagree, simply ask for their tolerance and respect. It's what worked for me.

She's purdy! Good grab, if a bit impulsive lol. It was nice running into you!

If I feel up for it, I'll head in tomorrow since that's when they do all the firearms stuff. I'll record the audio if I do it.

Will this idea ever be as secure as a dedicated quality safe? Of course not, but the incognito factor can't be ignored. Unless a thief knows what's inside, chances are they won't waste their time trying to get a snack from a fridge in the basement or garage. If you want to increase the security, I'm sure your could rig some beefier hinges and plate the interior.

It's really not a horrible idea at all. I've seen a bunch of examples of people doing DIY "safes" using retro soda dispensers and so on. Not only is it cool and quirky, but it's also discreet. The phrase "hiding in plain sight" comes to mind. If you're committed to it, I say go for it and feel no shame.

I concur. Excellent read. I'm bookmarking it for sure.

Done. We should keep in mind that online polls are not scientific and shouldn't see the light of day for that reason alone.

I understand what you're saying, and I want to make it clear that I do not advocate people simply not showing up. What I intended to convey (and which may have gotten diluted in the heat of the moment) was as many people as possible should show up, but if they were to speak, they should have been prepared, poignant, and on topic. If they insisted to not do the latter, it would be at that point that I would recommend they stay home.

Your attitude is indicative of the problem I'm trying to diagnose. It also seems to be unfounded, since despite the numbers, all the bills went through committee. In my book, that's not moving forward. It's likely that you, along with several others here, counter that premise with the idea that nothing we did mattered anyway. You're free to believe that, but when you look at the media reaction to the events, it was not favorable. So then the media is against us. I get it. It doesn't change that instead of making the politicians look disconnected from the populace, we make them look courageous in the face of a vocal minority. I also don't think we're on the same page when we use the word 'nothing'. I use it to refer to the neutral position in the trichotomoy of gain, net zero, and loss. When you state that doing nothing would have moved us backwards, it's clear we are not on the same page. If you read my posts, you'll find that I have always advocated the communication of facts. If you comprehended otherwise, I would recommend re-reading my comments. While I certainly agree that our side has more facts on our side, I didn't see said facts presented by many speakers for our side. There's an old law axiom that goes something along the lines of: "If the law is on your side, pound the law. If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound the table." I saw a lot of people from our court pounding the table (both metaphorically and literally), and that kind of behavior isn't conducive to a positive public image. It's also important to realize that preaching about a perspective on the Second Amendment isn't a fact. I agree that we need to take a different approach, and if I had to recommend a specific approach, I would recommend an inclusive grassroots approach. If voting people out of office is what we determine to be the most effective strategy, then it makes sense to increase our constituency base as much as possible. This includes, but is by no means limited to, crossing party lines and taking the anti-gun people in our lives out to the range and trying to turn them into gun owners. Turning a typical democratic voter into a voter who is willing to cross party lines on the issue of guns is a net 2 votes gain for us, and should consequently be seen as incredibly valuable. I hear people say over and over again that anti-gun people cannot be convinced, and I always argue against that premise because I am a reformed anti-gun proponent and I am willing to cross party lines to vote for someone based on that issue alone, especially on a local level. Having that experience, I can say with confidence that the type of behavior I saw at the hearing is not persuasive and not productive in the long-term, at least within the confines of my recommended approach. There is a potential gold mine for the gun rights movement within the younger generation as a result of the recent popularity of the pro-rights/libertarian school of thought. There is also a large segment of gamers who enjoy playing First Person Shooters who would be more inclined than many to be interested in our hobby. By continuing to associate gun rights as being packaged with dying political movements like anti-gay marriage, we do nothing but jeopardize the future of gun rights.

It was a public forum and the audience was not limited to only politicians. It was bad PR plain and simple. Again, if people believed that the hearings were predetermined, fine, they're entitled to that belief. However, it is in no way productive to make an ass out of the community. It's making a bad situation worse.

It doesn't matter if we were going to make any headway or not. We had three choices: We make it better. We gain nothing. We make it worse. Doing nothing is always better than making it worse. If we went in that room and speaker after speaker was as ridiculously reasonable as possible, the worst case scenario is that we accomplish nothing. What we did instead was go in there, fulfill every conceivable stereotype that people have of gun owners, and embolden our opposition, all while gaining nothing. If people though this meeting was a sham from the beginning, then either stay home or don't speak. Don't make it worse. If people think that people can't be reasoned with, then you've already lost. Don't drag everyone else down with you.

A. Million. Times. This. I'm angry about this, so I may say some things a bit more bluntly than I usually do. This is our fault as a community. Our fault. For a community that likes to toot its own horn about how organized and factual we are, we don't deliver on either of those fronts when it matters. Did we show up in numbers? Sure. Were we cohesive in our message? Not even close. It happened at the last committee hearing and we learned nothing. Going up and proselytizing about the second amendment doesn't work, but the more important point is who the hell thought it would? Do we honestly think that preaching to our representatives like they're children is going to do anything except reinforce the prejudice they have against us? We had to be reminded constantly, over and over and over and over again to stay on topic. But nooooooooooo. We had to continue to systematically act like an unorganized mob incapable of maintaining any kind of civility. You have a legitimate disagreement with us? We don't argue against your assertions like reasonable people. We boo you. You make a stupid rant about how people don't understand rights despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the hearing? We don't correct you. We cheer you. I went to this meeting with specific criticism of the bills I found the most heinous. I was ready to meet each with fact-based criticism and legitimate concerns about the consequences should they pass. It didn't matter, not because the committee wasn't willing to hear what I had to say, but because by the time I got up to testify, they were so annoyed by everything that had happened in the hours before that they were zoned out, and understandably so. What would have happened if every member of our side went up and spent their two minutes on the bill they opposed the most, and did so with logic and reason? Do you think that the committee would have been more receptive? Hell yeah they would have. The only times that the committee expressed genuine interest in our perspective is when someone opposed a specific bill and gave good reasons why. If you maintained the defeatist attitude that this meeting was a sham from the beginning, do us all a favor and keep your ego at home and let the big boys do the real work, because making a fool of yourself does nothing but set us all back. I got an email from the NJ2AS that they're no going to bus people in on Thursday. Good. It's about time that the NJ2AS realized that we're our own worst enemy. I'm sorry for ranting, but I needed to get this off my chest.

Sitting in room 6 now. I'm sitting on the floor next to the tables near the bathroom. I'm wearing tan pants, a white striped shirt and a blue striped tie (for anyone curious, lol).

I'm not a ballistics expert by any means, but from what I've gathered: Getting shot sucks. Getting shot by a carbine really sucks. Getting shot by a battle rifle really, really sucks. Does the AR15 do a lot of damage? Sure. It's a carbine and there's a lot of energy transfer and tissue damage. It's definitely worse than a handgun wound which comprise the vast majority of gunshot wounds, which would explain the shock of the ER docs. Is it more powerful than your average hunting rifle or shooting some kind of super bullet? Hell no.

Is this going to shut down the shop/range for any extended period?

Looks good. I may just need to take a trip down when it's all done.

There is a waiting period for handguns, which is never typically encountered because the time it takes to issue a P2P is longer than the waiting period.

I don't think the point to push is the availability of the ammunition, but rather that the accumulation of ammunition is neither an indicator of violent behavior nor abnormal behavior. There is no evidence bearing on the assertion that individual stocking of ammunition is a bad thing. It's a solution looking for a problem and the burden should be placed on Cryan an his ilk to provide evidence to prove their assertion, not on us to disprove it. Besides, claiming that the same amount of ammunition can be purchased at a gun store is not entirely true and can be easily countered by proposing limits on the quantity of ammunition that can be purchased ( a far worse scenario). Their game that puts us on the defense and forces us to disprove their baseless assertions is a losing game and they know it. We need to push the idea that what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, and that the biggest tenet of 'common sense' is supporting evidence.

Here's a video from the host after filming. I really don't think that the documentary was that bad, if anything, it was more positive.

There's an idiom I've heard regarding this that goes something along the lines of "if the service is free, you are the product".

That pretty much sums it up.