Textbook Example of Winning

As I write this on May 1, I just returned from committee meetings at the Louisiana Legislature, where several gun bills (bad and good) were scheduled to be heard. In short, we won, and how we did it is a great example of what I’ve been saying.

We showed up in huge numbers.

When I walked into the meeting room a half-hour before the hearings started there were hardly any chairs left. More than 80 gun rights activists had taken them, wearing color-coded shirts to show the legislators our power, our number, and that we were looking at them. There were, by best count, perhaps a dozen from the Everytown and Mom’s Demand gun-ban groups.

By the time the hearings started, every seat was taken. The prime issues to be heard were a cleanup of the state’s firearms law preemption provisions (a good move) and the introduction of the Bloomberg gun confiscation scheme, also called a “Red Flag” law, or Extreme Risk Protection Order. That’s where someone can make a complaint, claim you made a threat or are acting strangely, and the police come and take your guns without you ever being informed or being able to defend yourself in a hearing.

We swamped the hearings. The NRA was there with a sharp field representative; our state gun rights group (Louisiana Shooting Association) was there; and a couple of ad hoc gun rights groups were there in big numbers.

The attendance was backed up by people who know the political system, had already worked with legislators, knew how to put the right butts in the right seats when it was time for voting, and basically know the bizarre world of politics.

We must have both. But we can’t win without showing up. ~ Tom

Tom Gresham
Author, outdoorsman, gun rights activist, and firearms enthusiast for more than five decades, Tom Gresham hosts Tom Gresham's Gun Talk, the first nationally-syndicated radio show about guns and the shooting sports, and is also the producer and co-host of the Guns & Gear, GunVenture and First Person Defender television series.