Last week I had the privilege of speaking at the Women’s Defense League’s 2A Rally in Concord. It was a bit breezy, but you can hear me over the bustle of the 2A community, many of who were actually paying attention.
Once I got the microphone in the right place.
I talked about what I called the five rules for engaging “people” on Firearms and the Second Amendment. Mostly online but it could just as easily apply in-person. You can watch the video version from the Rally below or since I love you all so much, I re-read the prepared remarks from the comfort of my home studio (kitchen table) as an installment of The Real Resistance Podcast. Easier to hear.
Watch and listen to all the event speakers here.
You can also read the entire transcript below or listen and read or go make a sandwich. No pressure, you do what pleases you.
Here’s the audio
Here’s the Transcript.
Have you ever come across a “wrong opinion on the internet?
Our first instinct when we stumble onto one might be to drop a rhetorical fuel-air bomb on the offender’s opinion.
To smote IT and all memory of their idiocy from the face of the digital world.
And depending on the forum, that might be what is required.
But is it the best course of action?
While not every engagement needs to be turned into a learning opportunity as ambassadors or missionaries for the natural right to self-defense – I’d like us to consider the following.
Rule #1 When engaging with wing-nut gun-grabbing leftists remember that they are not your audience.
No amount of logic will turn them, but that does not mean we cannot use them.
Whether in the real world or the digital world – the people lurking along the edges are those to whom you must speak.
Most regular folks grasp that they should be allowed to defend themselves if attacked but they may not know exactly how to articulate that or why that Right must extend to firearms.
Before you engage, think about what you might say that could move them to embrace the good word of the natural right to self-defense.
Rule #2 – ‘Never stop your opponent from making a mistake.’
Anti-gun enthusiasts are ruled almost entirely by emotion. Very few of them act out of reason. Most of them know nothing about the subject or only know the anti-2A talking points.
They are easily triggered and very poorly informed.
Let them be who they are. Your job is not their conversion. There will be no second amendment “come to Jesus’ moment” for them.
But they will give you the rhetorical rope with which to hang a great big sign for everyone else watching, reading, or listening as to why the second amendment matters and why they need to help you defend it.
In the movie Roadhouse Rule # 3 is Be Nice. Our rule number 3 is to stay calm.
No matter what they say, don’t take it personally. Don’t let them make you emotional.
Stay calm, even when it looks like it might be time – to not be calm.
If you are debating a gun-grabbing Marxist on social media and you find you can’t type fast enough to get the reply out of your head, slow down!
Take a breath.
Type that response somewhere else first. Read it and then read it again.
Remember rule #1 and rule #2.
Is what I’m about to say going to get the people lurking on my digital flanks to think seriously about their inherent right to defend themselves
Rule#4 Not Everyone who broaches the subject in ignorance will be a wingnut.
In many a calm social setting, a picnic, a barbecue, at the watercooler, even in social media forums, you may find yourself on the topic of firearms or self-defense.
Frank Minter, the Editor of America’s First Freedom, suggests Polite, relevant, open-ended questions, based on how the topic was broached.
“Why do you feel gun-free zones save lives?”
“Why would disarming your neighbor make you feel safer?”
“How would you feel if you were trapped in a public place with some madman who was assassinating people?”
And Rule#5 Spend some time on the debate range.
The right to keep and bear arms requires that we know how to use those tools safely and effectively. We practice. We drill. We take classes. We read. We watch and we learn.
Even the most capable among us are constantly stretching and adding to their skill-set – and reinforcing skills they’ve already learned.
Defending that right in a conversation is no different.
Invest some time on the debate range.
Most of what we do to defend the right to keep and bear arms happens in the public space. The debate space. The first amendment space.
Challenge yourself. Ask the question you’re likely to get and then learn the best answers. Practice. Share what you discover with others. Commit to not just being good with a firearm but being great at spreading the good word about our natural right to self-defense.
You can us those same skills to testify at legislative hearings. To lead letter-writing campaigns. To find ways to move hearts minds and votes.
“Listen, and understand. That gun grabber is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t care about your rights. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until those rights are dead.”
You cannot nor should you want to shoot your way past that: but you don’t have too. Not yet. There are millions of people who will embrace those rights. Who can learn to cherish and protect them the way you do.
Judge Napolitano put it this way – “The right to self-defense is a manifestation of the natural instinct for survival, borne in the hearts of all rational people.”
One well-managed conversation might be all it takes to turn them toward the light.
And once they’ve begun to turn, invite them to the range.
Thank You.
Here’s the Video
