Therein lies the problem. I often equate my experiences with gun owners with my experience as a healthcare union organizer. I would make housecalls to hospital, nursing home and mental health employees - from nurses to housekeeping. All - and I mean all would talk endlessly over coffee and cigarettes about how sick they were about being ignored, underpaid, unappreciated and oppressed by their employers, the state and the healthcare system. They would ramble about the Big Dig and road projects and being overlooked by the legislature for a cost of living increase. I would tell them: "Come with us then - we're going to rally at Beacon Hill". I would visit 150 employees, 7 would show up for the bus. I gave a speech on Beacon Hill to a crowd of 200 out of 10's of thousands who were informed the rally would be taking place. Weld probably sat in his office and laughed his ass off... Still, I would go back and listen to the excuses: "Oh, it was THAT day??" "My daughter had soccer practice" "I get sick on busses" - on and on ad nauseam. I would then say: "Okay then, sorry you missed it, but we really could use you on the informational picket at the hospital - we're also doing a letter writing campaign to Ted Kennedy and John Olver to try and get them to act". "Ted Kennedy? Oh, I love Ted Kennedy - you're not going to make him mad are you???" You would have thought I was committing blasphemy. Again, no one would show and a handfull of us would stand in the rain and look like idiots - powerless - voiceless.
A huge chunk of gun owners are the same way - sorry to say it. Many talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk, (even to the voting booth), they go the other way. Some hunters think: "It will never happen to me - let them have those friggin assault rifles". Others may think that their vote will do no good - after all Massachusetts is run by Liberals. Few realize that en masse, we can rattle some cages. Still, when you see that out of a census of 12,000 gun owners that 5.6% showed up to the polls, (in California of all places), one could have the tendancy to throw in the towel.
I came away from by breif union experience with the thought I posted above. That right here in Massachusetts, where once people rose up against tyranny and started a revolution based on freedom from oppression, that somehow, somewhere along the line we've become sheep - content to roll over on our bellies and wait for the "slight pressure".... We bitch on internet forums and with our shooting buddies on the rifle range - hell, we'll even send an E-Mail that will never be read to a politican who could give a shit, but how many of us will show up at the polls or get on a bus and stand out in the rain on Beacon Hill? I guess time and the next round of rights stripping will tell....
Ramble over...carry on....