STOP A NEW AWB

FROM AR15.com

Enough whining! Enough whimpering! Enough rolling over and simply giving up! Neither of those things are going to get us anywhere. But diligence and planning can.

Here is another suggestion for how we should organize to fight any new anti-gun legislation:

First and foremost, we must be highly organized. That doesn't mean just this forum. It means we all have to work to ensure that all firearms forums are interconnected and be capable of working together and sharing news if and when that becomes necessary. Obviously, this will largely fall to the site staff. But everyone can help. But to launch an effective counter-effort against the antis, this needs to be done.

How will this be beneficial? News travels fast online. The better networked we are with other like-minded people, the faster we can react to any new legislation that is introduced. But more importantly, by getting as many gun owner groups linked together as possible, it will allow us to develop and implement a particular and well focused strategy, then carry out that strategy. Without that sort of networking, everyone is just running around doing their own thing with no knowledge of what other groups may be doing. It makes any effort far less organized and far less focused.

Imagine if all the firearms boards devoted to AR rifles, AK rifles, M1As, FALs, H&K, Sig, Glock, Smith and Wesson, Ruger, and all other brands and types of semi-auto magazine fed weapons, had a sort of "panel" made up by staff from each of the individual forums to determine what actions to take, where to focus those actions and how to carry them out. It would make our efforts 100x more effective.

Imagine for just a moment that we needed to counter something in the Senate. Imagine how effective it might be if all the boards were connected, agreed on a letter writing campaign to Harry Reid, agreed on the general tone of what the letters should be (maybe even share examples), and contained a time line for when to send them. Rather than letters being sent a few here and few there to dozens or hundreds of people, you could have thousands upon thousands arrive in his congressional mailbox on the same day. See how much more powerful that message would be?

Being organized is the most critical element to winning our future battles. Rather than being like a bunch of independent little islands scattered all across a vast ocean going their separate way, we need to unite into a tightly connected network that shares info, resources, ideas, develops strategies and put into action plans to stop the gun grabbers.

I would highly encourage the site staff here to reach out to the owners and staff of other firearms forums (as well as all pro-gun organizations for that matter) and form a panel made up from key people with each group to head and direct such efforts. It doesn't even have to be anything overly formal. A simple forum where representatives from all groups can meet and plan would be sufficient. Those representatives could then brief their individual forum members about anything requiring attention. It needs to be done right now. Planning needs to start right now. Everything needs to be in place before any anti-2A legislation ever hits the floor. That way, if and when it happens, we can call up said network, pull out the proper battle plan for whatever situation we are needing to deal with and start an effective effort immediately to counter it. This will save time, it will pool resources, it will give us better command and control to steal a military term, it will allow us to better focus our efforts and it will make our voice 100x louder. Think of it as the NATO of gun owners. Any single European nation would have folded almost immediately if the Soviets had invaded during the Cold War. But with all of them and the US working closely together, the Soviets were never able to get that chance. We must do likewise when facing the gun banners. Alone we are piss ants. But together, we are millions of pissed off motherfuckers who can and will be heard.

Simply put, it is time for all pro-gun websites, forums and organizations to join forces in a highly networked community. Since this forum is one of the largest and most influential gun forums on the web (with over 130,000 members here alone), why not we be the one to lay the groundwork to start this effort? As they say, "if you build it, they will come."

And one final suggestion and question: Does the site staff have the ability to send mass PMs or emails to members? Lots of people on these forums never set foot into GD or the Politics forum. Many (and I am included) log straight into the actual forums and never look at the front page. So many people miss lots of important news. By having such a system in place, the site staff could rapidly alert every swinging thingy that belongs to this forum of developing situations that require their attention and direct them in a unified manner on how to react to that situation.

Again, maybe I have spent too much time involved with firefighting and emergency management. But I see effective communication and partnership with outside agencies (or in this case, other gun nuts) critical to dealing with any major challenge that requires a unified response. Therefore I would love to see us start networking with other forums and pro gun groups as quickly as possible. It could mean the difference between preserving our 2A rights and political defeat.

Does anyone else like this idea? Does anyone have additional ideas that could be added? And for the site staff, how feasible are my ideas? I am so tired of all the hand-wringing and fear being displayed on this forum. I feel we could put those energies to much better use by being proactive and taking efforts to make sure a new ban doesn't happen, rather than running around screaming the sky if falling.

UPDATE #1: We now have a temporary chat room set up to discuss these issues. You can log in by visiting:

www.harrystone.net/chat

This is where everyone involved (all the various groups that have joined since the original post) can meet, for now, until the permanent forum and website are completed.

We won't be in the chat 24/7, but I will personally make an effort to be in there whenever logged on, until the permanent site is built.


UPDATE #2: OK, I went ahead and created an IRC chat for our group. I elected to go with a network that I have a lot of experience with. There are a variety of servers. It is an extremely reliable network. I have chatted there for several years and I don't ever think I have seen services go down even once during that period. I know a fella there who runs one of the servers. And it is generally a pretty troll free network compared to most I have been on in the past. Also, depending on which server you select, it is speedy as hell. I really can find no weaknesses on this network. So I went ahead and registered my "Charging_Handle" moniker over there and registered a room. Here is the access info:

The Channel is: #2AM

The Network is: irc.slashnet.org

Come on over and register your nickname. And if you don't know how, I'll help you.

Now, if you don't have an IRC chat client such as mIRC, Chatzilla, Trillian, etc, and don't wish to download one, you can still use the chat by going here and typing in the above info:

pjirc.viper007bond.com/
In the meantime, we'll also leave the room at harrystone.net open for a few more days, until everyone can transition to the new permanent chat. IRC is so much better than java it isn't even funny. You won't be having to deal with the timeout issues like you have at the current chat.

Update #3: The forum is now ready. Everyone who has registered thus far was just activated. If you haven't yet registered, you can do so here:

www.righttokeepandbeararms.com/phpBB3/index.php

Please spread the word about our forum!