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.
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Unfortunately, the only thing I have in common with many gun owners is we both own guns.
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