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mr.72 wrote:

karder wrote: Fear of guns is almost universally linked to a lack of experience and knowledge of guns.

Really? I don't notice that anyone who knows or cares about politicians' positions on guns, gun control, or government actions towards gun rights have any fear of guns or lack of experience. Those fearful of guns, who lack the experience, as you correctly suggest, probably do not pay attention to gun rights at all.

I think those who actively want to restrict your ownership and rights with respect to guns, and who desire to ensure that only the government has access to guns, absolutely and definitely know what guns are useful for and are quite comfortable with them being used to create a disparity of force. You know that no liberal politician who intends to restrict your gun rights is afraid of guns, certainly not afraid of the guns being carried by their own protective detail and most of them have guns of their own. They just don't want you to have guns. Or money. Or anything else that will give you power that cumulatively may add up to enforce accountability from government.

mr.72 wrote:So you are suggesting the NRA should morph into "the ACLU for hunters", and that is what is going to help those who support the 2A win elections?

I don't agree with this premise one little bit. In fact, I think the NRA is too broad to do a very good job as it is, so making it more diffuse is not going to help. What's wrong with the ACLU carrying the flag for the 1A? Let some other organizations handle your 8th Amendment and 4th Amendment arguments (with which I fully agree, we need to confront these things, but it's just not the role of the NRA).

The problem, if there is such a thing, is that the two big political parties have inconsistent platforms. In some ways, each one supports some kind of liberty or limitation of government, and in other ways each party supports some kind of restriction of liberty or abridgment of rights. It just so happens that the left wing Democrats support restriction or abridgment of the 2A rights, and at least pretends to support the 1A instead (well, as long as your 1A rights don't include free exercise of the Christian religion...). The Libertarian party may be close to supporting liberty and the least abridgment of rights, but we should recognize that most people do not support this philosophy. Simply put, today's Americans, by and large, don't support the freedoms outlined in the Constitution. They may support part of it, as it benefits them specifically, but otherwise they seem to desire abridgment of rights and handing over more and more powers to the government. We are already halfway down the slippery slope either way. Too many people with their hands out are having something put in it to gain support of taking away the handouts and returning freedom to people to their own right to their property. Too many people have special status according to the law to support equality and liberty, since it will result in taking away their "special" status and allowing others to be just as "equal" as they are.

Sounds like the suggestion is to turn Conservatives into Liberals, only with support for the 2A. That's a fool's errand and will not result in what we need.

Frankly, the reason we are going to need the 2A eventually is because of the abridgment of the rest of our freedoms and conversion of our government to veiled socialism, ignoring of the Constitution besides the 2A, which are all part and parcel of the Democrat party platform. The 2A can be used to defend our freedom from a tyrannical government. Allowing a tyrannical government in order to preserve the 2A is not exactly going to work.

mr.72 wrote:

Zee wrote:Liberals, by definition, are open and tolerant. Liberals should be the easiest to talk to because they are apt to listen.

I have not found that to be even remotely true.

Not even occasionally.

The liberals I have talked with (such as many of my family members) tend to be very resistant to actually having a reasoned conversation about anything unless you already agree with their position. Yeah, they are open and tolerant as long as you already agree with them.