Gun rights advocates unite!

Today, I was made aware of an initiative over at the Guns Newtork Forum (I'm not clear on whether it actually started there, or somewhere else) to unite all gun forums (AR15.com, The High Road, The Firing Line, 1911 Forum, Glock Talk--and many others) and blogs into one cohesive, massively powerful grassroots force.

The recent groundswell of righteous indignation over Zumbo's forcible insertion of both of his boots in his mouth, and the immediate effect it had on the outdoor sporting industry provides just a glimpse of what kind of economic power gun owners can bring to bear. The reaction to Zumbo was improvised and spontaneous, but still had a great deal of power. How much greater, then, would be that power, if it was carefully cultivated, focused and directed?

The civilian disarmament lobby likes to portray those who oppose them as a faceless, evil, behemoth "gun lobby," which they invariably equate with the NRA. This is patently false, but it's taken as a matter of faith by the media, and thus hardly questioned among the public. A deafening roar from a unified, grassroots legion of motivated, patriotic gun owners would shatter that illusion.

The idea here isn't to replace the gun rights advocacy lobbying groups, like the GOA, SAF, CCRKBA, NRA, JPFO, etc.--their vital importance will be undiminished--the thinking is to open up a brand new front in the war against the war on guns (hope you don't mind me borrowing, David). The lobbying groups will continue to work on the legislative level, while the new effort would focus on the economic level, by organizing phone, fax, email, and letter blitzes, and if necessary, boycotts.

I'm still trying to get a handle on the idea, so instead of trying to explain it myself, I'll refer you (again, for those who missed it above) to the explanation here. I will post a very brief overview here (quoted from the link above) of the very first steps necessary:

1. authoring a mission statement: clear and to the point. (volunteers?)
2. Formally asking the moderators of other sites if they would like to be on-board with it, agreeing with the mission statement. (volunteers?)
3. Having a group of moderators, perhaps one from each involved forum, be the arbiters of the final action.
4. Keeping it professional
5. selecting out targets for maximum impact

and

6. Set up a blog to act as the blogger's alert center. I volunteer to bring back Headsbunker for this purpose, but if there is a well known gunblogger out there who would host this that would be more efficient.

Targeting Zumbo, an outdoor writer, whose sponsors were all necessarily sensitive to the pressures we could bring to bear, was easy. The challenges in our future will undoubtedly be more formidable. This idea might be just the ticket for meeting that challenge.