TexasCHLforum.com

Charles L. Cotton wrote:Sadly, some will loudly proclaim that they are just exercising their constitutional right and there's no reason for alarm. After all, they are just educating the public on their gun rights.

Several months ago, I saw a video from a gun dealer in another state blasting OCT for their tactics because it was causing their legislature to consider curbs on carrying of long guns. I think it was Oklahoma, but I could be mistaken. There was so much profanity, I couldn't post it on the Forum.

What's that old saying, "with friends like these . . ."

Chas.

Also a problem is that this kind of "my way or the highway" thinking they exhibit makes it almost impossible for them to get past the psychological hurdle of admitting that they might have been wrong. They are psychologically fragile, and if they admit that they might have been wrong about this, then they might have to admit they've been wrong about a lot of things.......and that is the hallmark of a fundamentally insecure person. They can't admit that they could have been in error, so rather than back away from the tactic, they double-down on it instead.

In that great podcast interview of you, Alice Tripp, and CJ Grisham, one of the things that stood out for me is that both you and Alice told CJ that sometimes mistakes get made, but that once the silly season is over, you look back at your successes and failures during the session, and where you had failures, you say "OK, I know now not to do that again", and you move on and try other things going forward. But because of their emotional immaturity and consequent irrationality, these radical OC types don't have the ability to be self-analytical or self-critical. Everything they think of is always brilliant, and when it blows up in their faces, it's always someone else's fault. My son was like that when he was about 3, but it didn't last because he grew up. The crazies in the OC movement have never progressed beyond that point in their intellectual or emotional development.

You would think that after the beatdown that OCTC took from the pro-gun community over their stunt in Austin, the people in Washington would have taken note and tried another tactic.

They are not smart enough for that.

Jumping Frog wrote:Seems the politically inept confuse attention with clout.

JF, if I may, I am going to use this quote over and over again when talking to or about knuckleheads in the open carry movement. It encapsulates the entire problem in one tidy sentence. "They are idiots" is also short and tidy........... and true........ but it doesn't even begin describe what they are idiots about, or why.

I am like a lot of other people who are in favor of unlicensed carrying, openly or concealed, who deeply resent the fact that it is THESE fools with whom the national open carry movement will be identified in the media, and not the millions of normal, sane, peaceful people who revere the Constitution and want to see the same reverence from our government.

Martin Luther King Jr's civil rights movement faced a similar problem in the 1960s, when some people automatically associated anything to do with racial equality protests with the more violent speech of Malcom X in the earlier years of his advocacy. But even Malcom X eventually recognized that the pacifist methods of Dr. King were more effective for the cause, and he toned down his rhetoric and began advocating nonviolence alongside King. His former followers killed him for it, but it was the peaceful methods of King that won the day and convinced the rest of America that the cause was just. But the violent speech of the radicals merely alienated white America even further, and convinced them that the civil rights movement was dangerous to the stability of the country—which of course was preposterous. But how much sooner would the pacifist civil rights movement have prevailed if there weren't any radicals tied to it in the public's mind?

That is where we are today. The 2nd Amendment and its expression are a civil rights issue. When radicals get involved in it, they do damage to the cause, and exactly ZERO movement forward.