March For Our Lives events - anyone else attend?

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D5CAV
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Re: March For Our Lives events - anyone else attend?

Post by D5CAV »

As Sun Tzu said, "The supreme art of war is to convince your opponent to lay down his arms."

Here's the ultimate in hypocrisy: https://www.timesofisrael.com/parkland- ... ves-rally/

Jews in Israel calling for US citizens to disarm. How about start in Israel? I'm sure there are numerous groups in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt who would support disarmament of Israelis - "for the children."

I don't know any Hebrew, but I'm convinced that "never" in Hebrew means 70 years. I always hear "Never forget" from Jews. It appears it means it's OK to forget after 70 years.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Rod
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Re: March For Our Lives events - anyone else attend?

Post by Rod »

I hate the casual way survivor is being thrown around. ONE building of seven was the scene of the shooting. The rest weren't even involved in it. If you're hiding under a desk in a building 50 yards away, you're not a survivor, you're lucky. Under their loose definition, if you were in the parking lot of a mall where a shooting takes place, you "survived" the shooting.
one can be a Democrat, or one can choose to be an American.
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Weetabix
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Re: March For Our Lives events - anyone else attend?

Post by Weetabix »

It's part of their tactic of taking over the language. I saw lots of "Ban Assault Weapons" signs. Lots of "My body is more regulated than guns" signs.

If you tell a lie long enough and loud enough, lots of people will believe it.
Note to self: start reading sig lines. They're actually quite amusing. :D
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scipioafricanus
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Re: March For Our Lives events - anyone else attend?

Post by scipioafricanus »

And they left their sh*t everywhere: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/03 ... -clean-up/
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Jered
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Re: March For Our Lives events - anyone else attend?

Post by Jered »

Rod wrote:I hate the casual way survivor is being thrown around. ONE building of seven was the scene of the shooting. The rest weren't even involved in it. If you're hiding under a desk in a building 50 yards away, you're not a survivor, you're lucky. Under their loose definition, if you were in the parking lot of a mall where a shooting takes place, you "survived" the shooting.
I had to qualify with my handgun at work.

I guess that makes me a shooting survivor.
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Catbird
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Re: March For Our Lives events - anyone else attend?

Post by Catbird »

I went to the one in Seattle.

I had been going back and forth about whether or not to go since I heard about it a few weeks ago. When one of the scouts in my troop scheduled his Eagle project for that day I figured I would be doing that. Then last week he announced he had to reschedule for Sunday, so that freed up Saturday.

I still wasn't sure though. I'm normally allergic to being the center of attention. I hadn't seen any interest in an organized counter protest on the local gun boards. I also had mixed feelings about participating and giving more "heat" to the event. I also wasn't eager to try to find parking around the Capitol Hill neighborhood where the march started, marching, and then walking back to my truck. I was also trying to work out the logistics of the dogs, if they could handle all the walking, especially the older one. I realized that I could park near the Seattle Center, the goal of the march, and just walk a few blocks, so that's what I did.

I had picked up a cheap, clip-on DVR on Friday, mostly for documenting if anything went sideways. I turns out that it wasn't positioned to shoot video very well, but I got the audio. I wore my typical casual clothes; jeans, plain black t-shirt, black Gore-Tex Carhart jacket, and a non descript baseball cap, I carried my AR strapped muzzle down across my back. I had a full 20 rd. magazine, (empty chamber). I removed the EOTech sight and installed the carry handle, partly so the sight wouldn't get lost or damaged in case of unforeseen circumstances, mostly so it would look more "assault weapony". This is the first time I have ever open carried any sort of long gun. I also had my SIG Pro in a OWB holster under my jacket. Also two dogs on a split leash.

I would guess there were about 3000-4000 people at the Seattle Center for the rally part of the march. I walked up to a place I could see the crowd and the stage and hung out at the outer edge. One man with his girlfriend approached me soon after I arrived. He was carrying a neon colored plastic "super soaker". He asked me if the gun was real, (that seemed to be most people's first question, I guess that would be the obvious ice breaker if I was in their position). He asked if I was there to counter protest. I said no, I was just out to walk the dogs and enjoy the day. He said that he had grown up in Houston and was familiar with the heavy gun culture there. He had recently lived in Japan for a couple years and wished that US firearms were more severely restricted like they were there. He said that he was concerned about an individual having so much power. He made the point that I could take my rifle and spray the crowd causing severe damage and pain. I told him that he could fill his squirt gun with gasoline and do the same thing, without a background check even. We talked about bump stocks and I explained that bump fire and full auto were quite different and that one could bump fire without the special stock with just a thumb and belt loop.

I talked to a couple other people for a total of approximately an hour. I was calm and polite and listened to what they had to say. I answered questions truthfully and tried to clear up misconceptions. I tried to make the point that most of the problems that people there were concerned about would be solved if the authorities simply enforced existing laws and policies. To those who felt that the country would be better off if no civilians were allowed to own guns, I said that what I feared most was living in a country where the government had a monopoly on that kind of force and therefore no motivation to follow their own laws. All of the people I talked to thanked me for listening and said that I was obviously one of the "responsible ones" that they weren't worried about, though they still didn't understand why citizens needed assault rifles. I talked about how some people believe that assault rifles are weapons of war designed for killing mass numbers in a short period of time. I asked. "If that's true, why does every police department in America use them? Surely we don't employ cops to murder people en mass?" One person asked If I was open to the idea of personalized gun technology, (biometric security). I told her that I would be willing to accept trust the technology as soon as the police were, (Seattle, King Co. Sheriff, State Patrol).

When the conversations came to a natural conclusion, I walked a large loop around the crowd. I don't think anyone noticed I was carrying a gun, at least not until I was well past them. It was my intention when I first arrived to find a policeman and let him know I was there with a rifle and had no ill intent so that he would know about me in case someone reported. The police were conspicuous in their absence. There are usually four or five at least wandering around in a crowd that size.

I saw a lot of handmade signs, a significant percentage hating on the NRA. There were a lot of mass produced signs which, if you read the fine print at the bottom, were supplied by the Socialist Party. There were a lot of printed signs with artwork made to look like handmade signs.

I headed back to the truck with no further incident, except in the last block, a minivan seemed to be following slowly behind me. I turned the corner and he moved on.

All in all, I'm glad I went. I'm still sore from the work project on Sunday though.
"If at first you don't succeed, that's one data point." XKCD
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Vonz90
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Re: March For Our Lives events - anyone else attend?

Post by Vonz90 »

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2018/03 ... lives.html

Interesting but not that surprising.
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SoupOrMan
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Re: March For Our Lives events - anyone else attend?

Post by SoupOrMan »

Remember, folks, you can't spell "douche" without "Che."

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Vonz90
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Re: March For Our Lives events - anyone else attend?

Post by Vonz90 »

From Jonah Goldberg's column today:
The Washington Post had a fascinating story yesterday that looked at who attended the rally and the reasons why they turned out. Apparently, they weren’t mostly young and they weren’t primarily there to agitate for gun control:

Participants were also more likely than those at recent marches to be first-time protesters. About 27 percent of participants at the March for Our Lives had never protested before. This group was less politically engaged in general: Only about a third of them had contacted an elected official in the past year, while about three-quarters of the more seasoned protesters had.

Even more interesting, the new protesters were less motivated by the issue of gun control. In fact, only 12 percent of the people who were new to protesting reported that they were motivated to join the march because of the gun-control issue, compared with 60 percent of the participants with experience protesting.

Instead, new protesters reported being motivated by the issues of peace (56 percent) and Trump (42 percent), who has been a galvanizing force for many protesters.
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HTRN
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Re: March For Our Lives events - anyone else attend?

Post by HTRN »

Theres something hinky with march for our lives, theres a thread over in GD that gets into it..
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