Primus
Regular Member
Lol that was cute
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VCDL is an "Extremist Gun Rights Organization" according to the leftist media.
- Thread starter va_tazdad
- Start date
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Lol that was cute
Primus
Regular Member
Your not remotely an apologist. Your just accurate per usual.
I already tried telling these guys once this list is bogus. But why let facts get in the way of some good chest thumping.
DrMark
Lone Star Veteran
user
Accomplished Advocate
I assume that you're referring to the radical extremist socialist media there, right? And I'm with you as to the last point - I often tell people who want help picking a lawyer, some are really good; some are really bad; and most are average. If you had to go to the hospital at two o'clock in the morning after a car accident, would you want an "average" surgeon? Journalists, plumbers, cops, etc.; if we could just get rid of all the humans, the Earth would be just fine.
va_tazdad
Regular Member
Which is why I keep your business card in my wallet. (And one in my wife's purse) She knows who to call if I get locked up.
Sometimes you just have to say, "I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you."
After giving it some thought...I don't know what VCDL is. It has a serious identity crisis and seems to have cells. .The board ranges from some of the finest people I know, to some of the most clueless. They have rolly polly Em members in the mountain burbs insulting the president of nationally syndicated hunting organizations, which we will call VMBCDL, the Virginia Beach contingent telling us they are only self defense oriented...that needs to be the VBCDL, the look at me advocates AKA ECDL, Philip who is for every gun owner...as long as they have a CHP..I rekon that's PCDL, the Burch Society which claims to have founded the organization, penned Shall Issue and invented the internet for AL Gore...that is KCDL.
It is all very confusing.
It is all very confusing.
Marco
Regular Member
1+
Unfortunately, the only thing I have in common with many gun owners is we both own guns.
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What is not confusing is that we (VCDL) do all have in common is an abiding interest in the 2nd Amendment, RKBA.
Let others try to divide us or reduce our effectiveness. I say that the benefit far outweights any differences we may perceive.
Repeater
Regular Member
Requiring Permission
Here is a thought experiment: let's try applying PERMISSION elsewhere such as:
Some Rights are More Equal than Others
It concludes:
Conclusion: Prior Restraint is evil, the tool of tyrants.
Here is a thought experiment: let's try applying PERMISSION elsewhere such as:
Some Rights are More Equal than Others
It concludes:
Conclusion: Prior Restraint is evil, the tool of tyrants.
utbagpiper
Banned
All that gun owners need to have in common is that they support RKBA.
At one time a few decades ago the gun grabbers were wildly successful at dividing us gun owners. And we happily played along. Hunters had no need for those military style guns or for handguns designed for killing people. The self-defense crowd had no need for shooting bambi. The collectors didn't care about anything useful. And almost nobody cared about the few guys who could afford the cost and hassle for class III items.
So one by one, various restrictions were passed that only affected one segment of the RBKA community or another. We were not hanging together and so we were being hung out to dry one by one.
Our salvation was not of our own making but was an unforced error by our opponents. They got overly confident and passed the scary looking gun ban in 1994. And while they sold it on banning the emerging popularity of military or sporting style guns, it was--quite deliberately--written to include some popular hunting guns. When the hunting guys objected, they were shocked to realize that, in fact, the gun grabbers had no intention of stopping at black guns or cheaply made handguns, but were going to take everything they could as fast as they could. A few notable figures went so far as to publicly declare their intentions to take all guns away as fast as they could.
Suddenly we were no longer factions, but a single, unified front. A host of easy re-election campaigns failed as gun owners swung the vote against those who had attacked them. A few years later, to put the exclamation point on that, a bunch of blue-collar union democrats refused to vote for Gore and swung that election.
This surge in popular, active support for RKBA resulted in States jumping on the shall-issue bandwagon which brought a bunch of new people into the RKBA community. Urban types who had no interest in hunting nor collecting but were keenly aware of the sky high violent crime rate of the 80s and 90s could legally carry a gun for self defense. Whereas pundits had predicted the decline of American gun culture as the nation urbanized and hunting fell out of favor among the rising generation, our numbers swelled. We effected elections and that effected legislation.
Now I see too many who are way too quick to divide ourselves again. Perhaps they forget history, or weren't around for it and haven't studied it. When I see gun owners calling each others (Elmer) "Fudds" or derisive names for those who own and carry for self-defense, or dismissive terms for collectors, or whatever it is, I fear we are going to repeat the political history of the 60s to the 90s.
Today's law that allows permit holders to carry someplace no private citizen currently can becomes the stepping stone to legalizing possession for all private citizens next year after we've proven that private citizens carrying in colleges, or bars, or public parks, doesn't result in the predicted problems. Letting hunters carry in a way not permitted in the city can be expanded next year to include all geographic areas. OC can raise public awareness and change attitudes in our favor if done with some calculation.
Two steps forward with no steps back is still two steps forward, even if it isn't 10 steps forward. Throw no segment under the bus in terms of taking away anything they already have. But if you can a little for one segment, without giving up anything, take it and run and then come back next year to take more.
I'm sorry, I'm verbose. But the history is clear for those who have lived it or learned of it. Don't do our opponents' work for them by dividing ourselves. And if someone in some other segment of the RKBA community wants to divide himself, don't buy into it.
United we stand.
Charles
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Well said Charles...If only life were so simple or agendas so pure...or for that matter division from only one direction. Many of us lived the bad old days and in fact Grapeshot and myself had CWPS during that time. But during those years there was a kinship between all the shooting sports. Things have changed and I often look back at an email that contains the sentence "Who is this we **** white man"...about hunters carrying, from the offical and only authorized voice...And I ask myself the question. .."Who indeed?". It's not the waves on the surface that will drown you or the wind that will take you out to sea Charles....It's the undertow and rip tide.
Don
Don
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utbagpiper
Banned
I agree completely. I view permits to carry, or background checks and de facto registration to buy to abhorrent to every principle of freedom I hold dear.
I also recognize that non-discriminatory (ie shall issue) permits to carry have allowed an entire generation of people to defend themselves without risking statutory violation of the law. This has greatly increased our numbers at the very moment that most were predicting a dramatic decline in gun owners as hunting become less common.
When Utah passed our shall-issue permit system some 20 years there were straight faced predictions of blood in the street, shootouts over parking spots, and routine road-road shootings. None of that happened, of course. When we strengthened State Preemption to prevent school districts and government colleges from imposing anti-gun employment and enrollment policies we faced predictions of dead children, shootouts over debates in PolySci classes, NDs in dorm rooms from drunk college kids. Again nothing of the kind materialized.
The large number of persons who own and carry guns for self defense has enabled us to stave off attacks on our "no duty to retreat" and "defense of habitation laws"
By the time we successfully pushed through permit-free car carry, our opponents were reduced to making philosophical arguments, defending the value of permit system, and claiming that they had never made any dire predictions about blood in the streets on prior occasions. Ditto when we successfully passed "parking lot preemption" to prevent private employers from enforcing anti-gun policies in the interior of employees' cars parked in the company parking lot.
Last year we passed a permit-free carry bill (concealed without giving up OC) through both houses of our legislature. The Gov vetoed it. We'll go again this year, and the next if needed to get it into law. And then spend a few more years to improve it if needed.
We also have a bill this year to remove a very long standing prohibition against non-permit holders carrying onto buses and trains. The prohibition predates our shall issue law and will probably fall fairly readily this year.
While abhorrent to principles, shall-issue permits have proven to be a highly effective practical strategy to getting ever greater recognition for our rights. They have been a practical, temporary solution to a need that we could not meet through purely principled means.
Charles
What does matter Charles, are the few whispers of truth spoken by the few without agendas or personal dislike...I strongly recommend you go up 5 posts and read the last two sentences written. They say more than our combined postings.
That answers both who is this we ****...as well as who indeed.
That answers both who is this we ****...as well as who indeed.
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utbagpiper
Banned
We are often our own worst enemy. Hopeful, the vigorous debates and disagreements on these and other discussion boards about the 5% edges, don't translate into real life discord among gun owners. I fear they do. It is notable that in '94 there wasn't nearly as much in the way of these groups. We had talk radio. A few hardcore nerds had the old usenet groups, or a dial in bulletin board. But mostly, we in the grassroots had a lot less chance to argue over the fringes.
It takes two to dance and any one side can refuse to play nice. But any one side can also choose to either reach out and make extra effort to be united, or to reciprocate offenses, real or perceived. We in the RKBA community on are the threshold of historic wins with the wave of permit-free carry going through the nation, along with deliberate reductions in off limits locations including anti-gun bastions like colleges. All we have to do is not mess it up with infighting or thinking we need to overreach this year because we are tired of waiting.
We will spend the next 100 years defining the limits of RKBA just as we are still defining the limits and application of the 4th amendment and 1st amendment. There is no final win when we will have it all. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Our job is to do right while it is our watch and to hand off that watch to the next generation better than we received it from the prior generation.
Charles
VCDL "extremist?" If VCDL is extremist then there will never exist an organization I can truly get behind 100%. I'm like the Ron Paul of gun rights to all my clueless sheep friends. The sheep wouldn't support RP because of such ideas as ENDING THE FED, merely auditing the Fed, breaking down our current system at its core and rebuilding it with freedom and liberty in mind instead of PRIOR RESTRAINT (which may be the worst idea in human history) and taxation or welfare.
Now I'm off topic, but you get it. I've never been a huge fan of "playing the game" to change the game. I is what I is.
Now I'm off topic, but you get it. I've never been a huge fan of "playing the game" to change the game. I is what I is.
Thundar
Regular Member
Peter,
The VCDL incoherence that you speak of is a reflection of the non-conformist nature of those that advocate for liberty. It is one of our greatest strengths and one of our greatest vulnerabilities. Antis try to exploit that vulnerability all the time, trying to peel off hunters or concealed carriers, or sub group of gun owners. Gun owners need to work together and not create internal schisms to do the antis work for them.
As for me, I have two issues with VCDL's tactics.
First is their incrementalist approach to gun rights. Their approach is: Make it a privilege for Concealed Handgun Permit keepers first, then later try to expand the privilege to a right. When examined objectively other states have had far greater success just demanding their gun rights. It isn't really an incrementalist approach anyways. How many P4P conversion bills did they push before the legislature this year? (By conversion I mean P4P laws that are being converted into laws for everybody) The objective answer is zero. There are now 5 constitutional carry states. That number could go as high as seven or eight by the end of this year. When will VCDL push for Virginia to be a constitutional carry state?
Second is their PAC's unwavering support of republican candidates even when republicans are not the most pro gun rights candidates on the ballot. Quite a wobbly path they take when their favored republican candidate refuses to even answer their questionnaire.
Live Free or Die,
Thundar
VCDL PAC does not endorse candidates who refuse to respond to the survey.
VCDL can only push/fight for bills that are accepted/sponsored by members of our legislature.
VCDL has an intense and abiding desire to see Virginia as a constitutional carry state - yes such a bill was submitted this year, but has already met an early demise.
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