Thread: The anti gun lobby

Originally Posted by ebf

Touchy point Sidney, or should I say Richard ? Want to have another go at answering questions about membership ?

Res, dude, it is your money, do with it what you want. For me, I choose to support organisations that are happy to publicly disclose their membership numbers (not some fantasy they dreamt up), easily verifiable by dividing the subs income. Can you easily get hold of financial statements for the last couple of years ? How hard is it to get info about organisational structure, regional representatives, background of the leadership team etc. Think of it as buying shares in a company...

Here is the thing Efb.... your wrong again.... so capacity obviously is an issue for you...

I know Richard, but am not him... I am not a member of the NSA and have not been associated with their legal activities..

I am however a law student, the only bit you have right so far....

If you want to buy shares in a company you should do so.... if you wish to support activates that encourage accountability, that might be a different thing.

Applying your formulae of how to achieve end game results sounds like you are prescribing inactivity... Analysis of membership and representation is purely a red herring. I am far more interested in the aims, activities and capacity of the group that I am supporting. What are our choices here...? Listening to the likes of you or going with something that actually achieves something?

You do not need large membership to pursue legal remedy, you need funding streams. Large memberships are more often than not, inefficient and indecisive, just witness your own diversionary opinion.

We have an extremely diverse community within the recreation firearms users community and getting everybody on the same page will always seem to be an exercise in herding cats....

Thankfully some people just get on with it.... your should go and do some more memberships analysis...

By memory NSA threads have a tendency to go pear-shaped very quickly. Is this what this thread is about ?

Don't think so

Gosh Sidney, I bet you get a lot of dates

Originally Posted by 308

Gosh Sidney, I bet you get a lot of dates

Are you on here looking for dates?

While not being associated with the NSA.... they have been the most effective of any groups at requiring accountability..

Whether you choose to support them in that approach is personal choice, but bang for buck not a bad deal from past performance...

I see a huge lack of big picture understanding..... a fragmented, uninformed, loosely associated bunch of people whose only commonality is that we happen to enjoy firearm recreation in one form or another...

We have the "nothings happening and you got nothing to worry about bunch." We have the "its just a privilege anyway" bunch. We have the "make concessions to keep the police happy and they will look after us bunch" and we have the 'keep your head down and don't draw attention to us bunch." We also have the "it doesn't directly affect me, cause I don't like MSSAs anyway" bunch.

You probably should be in the

"really pissed off because the police are deliberately acting outside the law, and getting away with it if we don't do something about it bunch....."

and the "why are the police actively promoting laws that discriminate against law abiding citizens bunch"

Your choice of how you might respond to that big picture reality.... but I would suggest that you don't have to become a member of the NSA to support the work that they do.. You have a perfect opportunity to maintain your elitist non radical persona, while getting others do the dirty work for you..

Sidney, tell me something. Is this "if you don't agree with my views you must obviously be mentally deficient or challenged in the intellectual capacity department" something they teach to all 1st and 2nd year law students down in Christchurch ?

Both you and tricky Dicky seem to have an almost mirror image approach when it comes to debating. Maybe you had the same professor ?

LLB is 4 years right ? Hopefully you guys will be taught a different technique in 4th year...

oh man I had something for this

Ain't that life!

Originally Posted by gimp

Classic.

Originally Posted by ebf

Sidney, tell me something. Is this "if you don't agree with my views you must obviously be mentally deficient or challenged in the intellectual capacity department" something they teach to all 1st and 2nd year law students down in Christchurch ?

Both you and tricky Dicky seem to have an almost mirror image approach when it comes to debating. Maybe you had the same professor ?

LLB is 4 years right ? Hopefully you guys will be taught a different technique in 4th year...

Nope nothing to do with being at law school for me... maybe its just that I am a cranky old fart who get tired of BS....

But hey, lets deflect from the issues again....

Originally Posted by gimp

aw cmon, we can't get first years to even say boo... u only get really cranky after the next few....

Originally Posted by Southern Man

Nope - colfo represent less than 2% of firearms licence holders and only have very few individual members.
Voting membership is entirely restricted to member organisations and entities - a maximum of less than twenty.

There is simply no broad-based democratic representation of licence holders.

I know - to get a 'policy' document at all it had to go through a local branch to a national branch to colfo ... and back down the chain of obstrustion at every level.

Other efforts such as NSA are simply not supported or obstructed by vested interests - or ignored at out peril.

Time is running out and much more restrictive laws likely in the not to distant future for even in the US this is apparent.

You are wrong here.

a ) COFLO represents ppl who are in gun clubs and the gun industry. So clubs, and blanket organisations for instance send them a cheque and get to vote. As a rep of one such I had/have a vote at the AGM on issues so there is some democracy going on. Unlike say some organisations such as NSA which can use the funds you give them for anything "related" they think is reasonable. I also wonder on the legal comeback on you if you donate to NSA and it goes pear shaped so I wouldnt donate to them myself, apart from I think they are nutters.

b) COLFO also approaches such organisations as say small bore (which tell them to "p*ss off") to get them on board but apathy rules.

c) COLFO seems to have some success lobbying but they are one "for" v quite a few "against".

I would happily support Colfo if they like did something other than just gas bagging and engaged with shooters