Just a quick expansion on yesterday's topic

Yesterday, I looked at some of the staggering sums of money dumped into the laps of the self-defense suppression lobby. Afterward, something else occurred to me. The civilian disarmament advocates like to claim that the gun rights movement "isn't a grassroots effort," but is instead an industry lobby that would be nothing if not for the money of the NRA--money that they claim comes mostly from the gun industry (the Gun Guys rarely make it through a day without making these claims).

This is so clearly false as to be laughable. The NRA's 4 million members, the GOA's million or so (I think--can't find that information at the moment) [Correction: GOA's membership seems to be closer to 300,000 or so--sorry for the inflated estimate, although in my defense, I did take pains to point out that I was unsure of that number], and all the members of the smaller gun rights organizations are clearly not all (or even mostly) affiliated with the gun industry, except as customers. Basically, we didn't join because we want to sell guns, but because we want to preserve our right to buy them. The recent firestorm of outrage over Zumbo's ill-advised blog post was not orchestrated by any commercial interest--it was the work of thousands of angry gun owners who reacted to a stab in the back from someone who had been considered one of our own. The "gun industry's money and power" had nothing to do with what happened--this was all about angry gun owners making their voices heard (and heard loudly). That's pretty much the definition of grassroots.

In contrast, we see the enormous quantities of cash thrown around by the other side. Are there any unpaid bloggers who focus exclusively on advocacy of gun rights denial? I suppose there must be some, but I don't know of them. I know of literally hundreds of bloggers (like myself, but better at it) who devote time and effort into gun rights advocacy, with absolutely no monetary compensation, and no expectation of it.

Still, the other side claims to be a grassroots movement, and claims we are not one. Anyone dumb enough to buy that wouldn't know grassroots if they lived in a sod hut.