Snowflakes in Hell

So today I attended the legislative committee session. Much of what was talked about was in regards to HR2640, and some matters that are appearing in the states like the “victimized twice” laws, forcing the reporting of stolen firearms. I was also quite pleased that the NRA is realizing that they need to have a better presence in the new media, and want to work more closely with bloggers.

At lunch, I found myself sitting next to Congressman Harold Volkmer. Yes, that Congressman Volkmer. Nice guy, and considering I regularly take advantage of the law he spearheaded, which consists of allowing gun shows, and safe transport provisions, it was quite a thrill to talk to him over lunch.

We joined up with Dave Kopel, Dave Hardy, and a few other folks for drinks afterward. Nice time. I got to meet Legal Bitch, the newest bitch girl. She’s very smart, and very cute, so be sure to check over there regularly for her posts.

I also met up with Tom King, of the NYSRPA.  Tom is a good guy, and I feel bad for being kind of hard on him as a new blogger.  Apparently our friend Jadegold sent him a rather horrid e-mail.  While I have no plans to ban Jadegold, as long as he’s reasonable here, I understand now why Tom did it.

I’m actually in Arlinton attending the NRA board of directors meeting as a guest of one of the board members. Very interesting so far. Not much time to be online, so I have to cut thigns short.

I’ve often said that NRA needs to be a big tent organization.   We have to make common cause with people who are mostly on our side, but might not be willing to take things as far as you or I would.  This would include hunters, many in law enforcement, traditional shooters, and people new to the issue.   We have to reach out to these people and work with them, rather than sizing up their second amendment purity, and choosing to ostracize them if they don’t meet sufficient muster.

It’s no secret that one of my big pet issues is repealing the 1986 Hughes Amendment, and allowing new registration of transferable machine guns under the NFA.   Does this mean I support the NFA?   Well, not entirely.   But it does mean I’m willing to accept it for now because a more realistic goal is getting rid of the Hughes Amendment.   By standing on the NFA, even if I don’t really agree with it, it helps to build a larger coalition against the part you do want to get rid of in the short term.

One of the traps we tend to fall into as gun-rights activists is believing that we are not a very very small minority.   If you’ve ever looked at GOA’s Form 990, based on estimates from income reported from membership dues, they would have, at most, about 30,000 members.  Even, absent NRA’s existence, GOA could pick up another 20,000 member of dedicated, hard-core, no-compromise activists, that’s stil 50,000, and politicians in Washington will safely ignore you.   This is why it is necessary to reach out to less hard-core members of the shooting community; we simply don’t have the numbers in order to be politically successful.

The failure to build a “big tent” is no where more apparent than in the Libertarian Party, where a dedicated group of hard-core activists have worked very hard to build an organization that’s based on strong principles, and fields candidates based on their ideological purity.  The Libertarian Party also can’t win elections, and isn’t building a movement.  Libertarian principles are now safely ignored by politicians.

Let’s not let this happen to the gun-rights movement.

Despite my fear of public speaking, I managed to force myself to stand up and have my say at our club’s board meeting.   Sadly, I don’t think I had much impact, because the board indicated that the ballot measure to end our club’s 100% NRA participation was a done deal.  I urged the board to allow NRA to send someone up to talk to us.  A few indicated NRA just wanted to talk about HR2640, and it wasn’t only about HR2640.  They also claim NRA didn’t want to talk to membership, but only a few select board members.   That’s the the impression I got from NRA, but several board members also confirmed this was the case.

So in short, the vote will go ahead.  NRA will not be talking to us, it seems.  There was, at least, one other board member who I managed to talk to.  I have two people who are sympathetic to my cause I didn’t have before.