To rally or not to rally–that seems to be the question.
Let me start out by saying that I’m keenly aware that the whole rally debate is as much a personal preference issue as choosing which manufacturer and caliber you rely on for your everyday carry gun. Generally speaking, what works for you doesn’t necessarily always work for your neighbor.
That being said, we need to look at the why behind the recent Second Amendment rallies; local, state, and at our nation’s Capitol.
If you’ve ever been to a Second Amendment rally at any of these levels, you already know that you will likely run into the same groups of people and quite possibly hear from the same few speakers most every time. The politicians who are actively manipulating numbers and conspiring to pass infringement laws are not going to show up, and the fact that we have gathered there in defiance of their overreach doesn’t seem to deter them or delay their scheming a single bit. It’s important for you to understand and acknowledge that fact. The anti-freedom politicians and organizations are not our audience at a rally.
Too often, you and I can get hung up on that fact. We begin to doubt the impact of bringing our Second Amendment community together to share ideas and strategies in a common place, in full view of both supporters as well as oppressors. We become dissuaded by the feeling that we are merely preaching to the choir. After all, isn’t that what we all use social media for?
So, if we are preaching to the choir, why should we participate? What is the motivation for taking time off work, incurring travel expenses, possibly getting your name put on a list, or having to follow unjust laws to even have the opportunity to attend?
The why is easy. We attend rallies because we thrive when We The People build communities, network, and form partnerships or alliances. We are reminded that we can and should work together on a daily basis even if we don’t agree on other issues. When we work together, putting aside our differences, in order to protect our individual liberty, that is the moment when our mission is noticed by those who would prefer to ignore us and pretend that we are nothing more than a lone voice in a crowd.
For far too long we have propped up organizations to pass off our responsibilities on to. These organizations have become easy to disparage, vilify, and arrogantly ignore. We, the American gun owners, have been lost in the shadow of these entities we helped build, and our individual rights are being eroded at a staggering pace, because others have been fed and believe the false narrative that gun owners come in one cookie cutter pattern, represented by an acronym or a single face on a billboard. They have been duped into believing this instead of the truth, that we are comprised of individuals representing the full spectrum of humanity.
When we come together like this at a rally and build alliances in our goal to protect our liberty, we are sending a clear message to everyone that the gun lobby is not some organization, corporation, or ambiguous entity. Instead, we are individual citizens standing together in solidarity, in unison, in harmonized defiance saying in a powerful singular voice that even though our liberty is individual, our fight to keep it is unified.
I am the gun lobby. You are the gun lobby.
When you and I join together, standing shoulder to shoulder in bold dissent over the infringement laws being passed by an overreaching government, we leave no doubt that We Are The Gun Lobby. And, like it or not, we are your friends, neighbors, coworkers, small business owners, presidents of corporations, county commissioners, and school teachers. We are in every store, every restaurant, and college campus. We sell you your home, deliver your babies, and care for your loved ones in care facilities across the nation. We are not a face on a billboard. We are “The People” which our constitution was written to protect, and together we mean to protect our Constitution just the same.
Again , I ask you, why do we take the time and effort to attend a rally? It is simply because that is not a message which can be conveyed properly by so many words typed on a screen.
I, personally, look forward to standing alongside of you at the next rally so we can finding new ways, face to face, to work together to help rebuild our Constitutional Republic to what it was designed to be.
What do you think? Leave a comment below.
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