Looking at Conquest

It has happened. What Syd so succinctly dubbed the Electoral Apocalypse has occurred. Gun rights advocates lost in the 2008 election. What do we do now? Where do we go from here?

First, accept defeat with dignity and grace. We must do that. An individual or a group is not characterized in how they achieve victory, but rather in how they accept defeat. We were whooped. Our asses are on a silver platter in front of us. But we do not have to eat. We must determine how this happened and not allow it to happen again.

I was not surprised that some of my readers would be bemused at my using a MSNBC widget to keep up with the 2008 Presidential election results. But what better way to assess the situation than observing the opponent? The bias that we have seen in the mainstream media will be exposed as they turn on their anointed superhero of 2008. By 2010, Barack Obama will suffer many more slings and arrows than George W. Bush ever did. The mainstream media is not about providing information. They are about power. The power to get someone elected, and then the power to tear them to shreds. Who the President is matters little to these power mongers. Since they felt the taste of power in the taking down of Richard Nixon, they have systematically tried to dismember every President that has held office, whether they helped him achieve that office or not. Barack Obama will not survive this onslaught. His followers are too fickle.

Barack Obama cannot possibly fulfill all the deluded promises his devoted followers obviously believe he made. He will not buy anyone gasoline, and he will not pay their mortgage. No FEMA cards are going to be available for the economically and socially ignorant. His inability to become the Sugar Daddy to millions of denizens who feel they have been disenfranchised by the Great Right Wing Conspiracy of Hate and Intolerance will cause them to toss him aside with the contempt of a crackhead tossing aside a baggie full of baking soda when the reality of the illusion sets in. Barack Obama will no doubt be remembered as the most ineffectual and perhaps the worst President the United States ever elected. Two years from now, Obama will no longer have the power base he has mobilized. We must preserve our rights until then.

Gun owners were soundly defeated in this election. Two of the most vehement gun rights abolitionists ever to achieve office are now headed for the leadership of this country. We must examine why this happened.

Gun owners have allowed themselves to be divided. We must not allow ourselves to be conquered. We must accept any one who wants to legally own and use a firearm, regardless of race, creed, religion, or sexual orientation. The gun abolitionists can not vote against gun rights when over half their constituents own guns and vote for their own human right to self defense. The gun abolitionists can not vote against gun rights when those rights are inextricably tied to human rights and civil liberties.

There is a reason that gun abolitionists want to preserve hunting. Hunters are easily marginalized. They do not represent a majority of the vote. The same is not true of people who have a need for self preservation and self determination. Those people constitute the entire strata and constituency of the voting public. They cannot be marginalized. We must introduce them to the purpose and true meaning of the second amendment. I know that meaning, most of my readers know that meaning, but did QJ know that meaning? He does now, and it is something he will vote to preserve.

Gun rights are about self protection, not hunting. We must never allow our opponents to paint us as a group of big game hunters again. We are not just hunters. We must stand up and say who we are. We are mothers and fathers. We are Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Independents. We are black and white, yellow and brown. We are gay, straight, bisexual and asexual. We are Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic, Atheist, and we live in every state in the Union. Our education ranges from doctorates from Harvard and Stanford to GEDs achieved while fighting in the streets of Baghdad. A dusty pick-up truck with a gun rack inside the rear window is not necessary to be one of us. We have one common goal. That goal is the preservation of our right to self defense. That right, that need, is universal. We must never allow ourselves to be portrayed as ignorant rednecks with tobacco juice drooling down our unshaven chins again.

So I challenge each gun owner reading this. Take an Obama supporter to the range. Teach them to shoot. Teach them about the second amendment. Take away the political left's power to destroy our rights through the ambivalence of others. If we fail, our enslavement is inevitable.