I spoke with many of the women at the rally and found that the blue hairs with the signs were actual sheep. Ive said before, I intentionally and purposefully went over with ItsTime cards to admittedly, get under their skin and whenever I engaged them, they were like cockroaches under the sudden glare of a fluorescent light - they were big and bad, calling us Neanderthals (and for a deaf bastard like me to hear it is amazing), but when I tried to talk with them, they were scared.
Mind you, my talk was to attempt to shake hands, they refused. To introduce myself by name, they would not do the same. I explained that we have similar goals when it comes to preventing violence but different ways to get there. "well, we're not going to rest until we get MORE regulation."
Fair enough, but know that we don't intend to stop coming out in opposition to fight bills like these - they are mere repetitions in many cases of existing laws and the ones that will affect ME will affect only ME, not the person hell bent on doing harm.
"you don't know what you're talking about and are selfish."
Uh huh, Im selfish. That's why I gave up time I didn't have to be here, to fight for rights and to make my voice heard. I'm selfish because I'm standing up against a wave of knee jerk reactions to tragedies, to politicians too happy to exploit them. But I'm the selfish one.
As has been the experience of many, one of the other geriatrics pulled her away.
I did get to talk to the women on the victims' panel. They were very polite, although a bit annoyed with us because we laughed at the teenager who said he was afraid to be mowed down by an AR15. One in particular indicated she admired what I had to say about working within communities to solve violence. She still pushes for more laws, but at least could be talked to.
I think we HAVE TO continue down that path of dialogue and realize that while we probably won't covert all of them to common sense, but we have to TRY and work with them to see that WE DO have the same goals in mind as far as public safety is concerned but that we have to work on ways of achieving this in a manner that doesn't take away civil liberties in any way.