New England Pro-Gun Group?

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Crazy idea: what about a New England gun rights group? I bring this up for a couple of reasons. #1 is my experience with a few RI groups that I won't mention, and #2 is the situation in CT.

Biggest problem I see with this is that the group would have to deal with six different sets of state laws and Fed law at one time. However this is the 21st Century and we can get information in 5 seconds without leaving the chair.

Biggest advantage is that we could stand together and act as a unit, not six disconnected sets of groups that can be picked on individually.
 
"Biggest problem I see with this is that the group would have to deal with six different sets of state laws and Fed law at one time."

Nope: The biggest problem is getting people's lazy assess off the couch. Only a tiny percent of gun owners participate in any manner.

Take this from someone who spent years trying to organize gun owners and gun clubs.
 
Nope: The biggest problem is getting people's lazy assess off the couch. Only a tiny percent of gun owners participate in any manner.

Take this from someone who spent years trying to organize gun owners and gun clubs.

I don't doubt you, I tried it myself before I went off my rocker and got tired of pessimistic BS. Gun owners tend to have a very narrow view; "this is my gun club, I pay my dues and NRA dues", or "this is my state, thank God I don't live in XYZ state."

Which motivates me to make a bigger New England group.
 
Personally, I think more groups is a mistake. I would rather have more participation in a fewer number of groups which would strengthen the groups rather than dilute the support. Lots of groups work if you have lots of participants.
 
Here's a thought. Instead of trying to create yet another group (if you're lucky, you'll run yourself ragged trying to make a difference while a bunch of people that don't want to leave their chair criticize you for not doing enough and a bunch of other folks refuse to join because your group isn't their group) why not try to work with the leadership of the existing gun-rights groups and major gun clubs to convene something like a New England 2nd Amendment Council or similar. Such an organization could get the representatives from various groups together regularly to stay in touch and have a unified front, tap into the existing membership and communication structures of those existing groups, and not be dependent on changing the behavior/affiliation of thousands of individuals. I'm used to getting information from GOAL, that process is only strengthened if someone from GOAL is talking with his/her counterparts in CT, RI, etc. but I"m still getting my info through the familiar channel. Hell, that's how so many other groups already work that I wouldn't be surprised if there was something like this already in place at least informally.

Best of luck to you either way.
 
New England 2nd Amendment Council

That's basically what I was thinking of. There's no reason to create a new group with members when an overall New England committee or assembly could meet. Have a rep from each pro 2a group like GOAL, RI Rifle and Revolver, Federated Sportsmen's (which is the group for RI gun clubs), maybe the NSSF, invite gun companies, friendly politicians, etc.

Have a monthly meeting or biweekly, develop a coordinated plan, and help each other out.
 
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Personally, I think more groups is a mistake. I would rather have more participation in a fewer number of groups which would strengthen the groups rather than dilute the support. Lots of groups work if you have lots of participants.

+1 David.

I'll use RI as an example, since I'm familiar with the 2a landscape here. On a good day, we can mobilize a few hundred supporters for a rally. On a day-to-day basis, many fewer are doing the work.

There's a whole bunch of duplicative / zombie groups dividing up the attention. FRISC / 2A Coalition both doing club outreach. CRALRI / RIFOL supporting online forums. Gun Rights Across America, RI Gun Blog, RI State Rifle & Revolver, and more than 25 gun clubs that don't seem to be having any effect, with a few exceptions.

Everybody who has a new idea wants to start a new group. This is partly due to the existing groups' resistance to change, and partly due to the impatience of those who want change to work within the existing systems.

One thing is clear, we don't need more groups.
 
None of the groups, group leaders or group goals are the problem.

The end result is that all of pro-gun groups are less effective than they can/should be due to uninterested and non active gun owners. Solve that problem and gun control will disappear.
 
In my experience, I've seen a full gambit of reasons why there's connection problems. I really don't want to get personal so I'll leave it there.
 
If you don't offer helpful suggestions nothing will change

Basically the biggest problem I see is sort of a disconnect between the average gun owner who's a member of a club and the gun rights groups. Clubs also have very few "Know your rights" events.

Let me give you an example from my experience. I volunteered to help a group make connections with gun clubs. In my experience, gun clubs have the membership body that's required for rallies, letter writing and phone calls, coordinating some sort of effort, event planning, etc. At least at my club, it is possible to get people to help out and contribute to the cause. But no effort is made to politely contact the clubs and spread the message.

The group I was working with had the idea to simply email the Federated Sportsmen's. For the uninformed, Federated is the coordinating body for gun clubs in RI. The plan was to email Federated and ask for a contact list of names, emails, phone numbers, and addresses. That idea did not work.

I managed to contact four clubs before me and the group parted ways: Wallum Lake (where I'm a member), Fall River, Stony Brook, and Pine Tree. I did this in a couple weeks. With Stony Brook, I simply stopped by a local FFL and asked about the club. Wallum Lake was a matter of sending an email to the club's appropriate committee chair. I contacted FR and PT by sending their Facebook page a message each. This group had been trying to contact people for a year or more, and I managed to do this task in a couple weeks. I was also invited to a Federated Sportsmen's meeting. After we parted, I forwarded phone numbers and emails to the group, but I doubt they ever called the gun clubs or replied to forwarded emails.

Another thing that irks me is some groups' lack of effort to connect to the common man. Take the Exeter recall election - the pro-recall side communicated with the people of Exeter by mailings, going door to door, and I think 3 or 4 road signs that were manned before the election. There was no rally. I'm not aware of an attempt to get TV or radio ads, however the pro-recall side was happy to be mentioned by Daria Bruno. I'm aware of the pro-recall side's budget also, and I think mailings were the worst way to spend the money.

Think about it, when a local restaurant or politician sends you a mailing, where does it go? The trash. The average person might glance over the mailing, but there's a difference between glancing and getting out to vote. If you want people to get out and vote, you need to work the people into a frenzy. The pro-recall side was also inflexible in their planning methodology, and I think out of touch with the average person.

One comment by a member of the group drove me off the edge and his basic idea was that average people don't pay attention to facts, figures, logical reasoning, and anything that's not on TV. Obviously a lot of people are sheeple, but I didn't see any effort to connect to them or to get their attention. In an election, you simply need 51% of the vote. You don't need the intellectual high ground.




So to sum up, my suggestions are for the current groups to connect with the average conservative person. And New England does have a mass of conservative people who sometimes simply don't know who to talk to or what to do. This can be done easily in the 21st Century via Facebook, Twitter, this and other forums, and old fashioned methods like simply getting to know people. I think I'm going to ask my gun club about a "know your gun rights" event also.
 
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Crazy idea: what about a New England gun rights group? I bring this up for a couple of reasons. #1 is my experience with a few RI groups that I won't mention, and #2 is the situation in CT.

Biggest problem I see with this is that the group would have to deal with six different sets of state laws and Fed law at one time. However this is the 21st Century and we can get information in 5 seconds without leaving the chair.

Biggest advantage is that we could stand together and act as a unit, not six disconnected sets of groups that can be picked on individually.

Before you try New England lets try one state at a time. In a state with several groups (RI) what I see is diferent groups all want to be in charge and since nobody wants to bend you have no unity. Everybody needs to lose the egos and try to work together
 
Everybody needs to lose the egos and try to work together

I've heard this mentioned at group meetings here and there but it never materializes, because like I said, few people take a hard effort to make contact with each other unless there's a huge problem (AWB bill, etc.).

I think the most connected group is the RI 2nd Amendment Coalition (in RI). Do they have any members on here?
 
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