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I am not talking about about people deep in the hobby, I am talking about people who might get into the hobby if they have a chance to hear about it, I am talking about people who are uninterested in getting into the hobby but would support us if they understood the issue. This is an ideological war, not a supply chain war, "loose lips sink ships" does not apply because our munitions are not physical good, our munitions are ideas. If we are silent about our ideas then they automatically win. You say they get on here to troll for ideas, but if we say nothing they just pass more laws anyway and get to do so unopposed. If we want to win the correct strategy is to try and expand our culture base, not hole up under a rock and strangle ourselves.I'm a long ways from being afraid of the antis. But I've been at this long enough to hear antis say exactly what I've just said. They don't need to come up with solutions to disarm us, people do it to themselves by giving the antis their next tactics to roll with come the next legislation session Jan 2025. They just troll on here and take notes.
Far as people who don't know. IF they're really a gun enthusiast they WILL figure things out or stay on top of what's going on from the word go. See how it works out by talking about it all. I promise you it will get worse.
Just like back in the day when every damn outfit selling 80% lowers broadcasted them touting how the government won't know you have them or find them, and i know THEE man who started casting them to start with. Now look how that chit turned out. Now in WA they had to get serial numbers engraved on them as of last March. People talk too.much about a good thing, then they ruin the chit. They should have just bought them built them and went by the old saying " I see nothing, I know nothing, and I hear nothing" and if everyone had done that things would have been a helluva lot better off than we are now. The old military term loose lips sinks ships, most definitely and assuredly applies here.
Nothing like telling the enemies of our hobby how to strip us of our rights and things we own buy or sell I'd just go about business as usual buy and sell and not worry about it period. They're gonna have one helluva Damm hard time logistically trying to stop it all. I been at this 50 plus yrs and have relatives who own full time gunshops. There's a lotttt of ways to get things done if ya know what you're doin.
And if we do manage to expand our cultural base by attracting new people, how will they learn what is and isn't legal, what is and isn't a concern, what is an isn't a thing they should be advocating towards if we do not openly talk about it? How do we spread our own strategic initiatives if we are all running silent? Do we not want new people to know that, without stupid laws like this, they might be able to make a little coin off their hobby with the right investment strategy, or with the right investment in tools and knowledge? Is that idea so dangerous we should consider it verboten to discuss, just so the antis don't get the idea to try an control it? Why shouldn't we talk about braces being a shortcut around NFA laws? Why shouldn't we try to make them as popular as possible so that we can then leverage legal precedents in our favor to get it thrown out under "common use" tests? Were not going to have any shot of ding that if we never let the new guys know that is a thing that can be done.
I vehemently disagree that running silent is the way to win a culture war. We need to be proactive about getting people on our side, which means talking about the injustice and how it specifically impacts us as individuals. It means we need to inform others how they can exercise this right in a myriad of ways, from minimal legal risk to direct challenge of the injustice in the court of law and public opinion. Remember, the antis already have a strategic goal they are working towards, they want a complete ban, and they already have a working strategy for how to get there; piecemeal legislation that chips away not only at the right, but at the culture that supports that right. You can argue that us talking about our specific gripes with the law is giving them info for the next law to pass, which may or may not be entirely true, but what is absolutely true is that by not talking about it we are directly facilitating their second goal of killing our own culture. That strikes me as a much more optimal way to lose then giving them a few ideas on what law to pass next, especially considering they are already going to pass a next law regardless, and it really does not matter what it is when you consider their over-all strategy.
So yes, we do need to run our mouths, we need people to know how many magazines and braces and suppressors and AR-15 lowers and all the rest are actually out there, where and how to get them, all the legal loopholes they can use to minimize their legal risks. We need to convince people that the acquisition of such items can be easy and low risk if done the right way, and encourage them to join our ranks by doing so. And even for those not inclined to directly join our ranks, we need them on-board with the idea that these laws are unjust, that they target innocent people just like them in ways that they can sympathize with.
And if the antis want to try and close those loopholes let them. We score our greatest victories when they overreach. They cannot boil the frog too fast, and they cannot boil the frog at all if it knows it is being boiled. For all the laws they are being passed in the last few years they are dangerously close to losing it all, not only in the court of justice, but in the court of wider public opinion too. Yeah, it sucks that we have to suffer under these laws for a few years right now, but that is far and away better than having to suffer under them permanently later, when our culture is so dead that there is no one left to fight these laws, and so few people who care that the high courts see no reason to maintain actually justifiable rulings.