Quote Originally Posted by pennlineman View Post
The Washington Nationals won the World Series on Wednesday. Three days later a crowd of 50,000+ shows for a victory parade and nobody paid them to be there. We muster maybe 2000 with 3-4 weeks notice. That says volumes. The population in the DC, North VA and Maryland area is huge yet they failed to show in force. I have over 100 friends who are pro gun, only 3 could make the trip with me on a Saturday. Spin it how you want, it's us.
Fair point. There are a lot of "pro-gun" people who are either for some restrictions/don't care about infringement/don't know about infringement/etc. A lot of people are really reactive on this issue and take what they have for granted. I know one person who verbally growls upon the mentioning of liberal media outlets, claims themselves "pro-gun", yet was completely taken aback when they suddenly discovered upon buying their first handgun that they could not take it to NY with them. Even in 2A circles, I saw people swearing off the rally because they thought it would be just a MAGA rally or be "a bunch of old guys standing around".

I'd argue that a sports league with millions of devoted fans can't really be compared. They're having a celebration/party and we are, as scruff excellently pointed out, standing for our rights with no exact, clear enemy other than the "anti-gun establishment". He's spot on that a better narrative would have helped. Maybe it should have been framed in the context of "all the democratic candidates are threatening to seize our guns!" Instead, Beto dropped out so some of that narrative was lost.

I think you make a great point about how many "pro-gun" people don't honestly care seriously, but I do stand by my statement that turnout probably would have been greater if they started promoting 3-4 months out, rather than 3-4 weeks out.

Quote Originally Posted by scruff View Post
I was disappointed, but now that I've had time to think about it, I'm not. The most successful rallies have a villain, an immediate threat, and a targeted message. The Pittsburgh rally had good attendance even though it was only a local protest. Villain: Peduto. Immediate threat: proposed AWB & high-capacity magazine ban. Targeted message: Constitution motherfucker, we'll fight this illegal law and we will not comply. It got way more media coverage because of the compelling story that it told.

This particular rally had no specific villain, no immediate threat, and no targeted message. Should we have expected a big turnout? Do other causes get large turnouts under similar circumstances? In hindsight, maybe we had unreasonable expectations. And it's no surprise that the media ignored it since there was no drama, no confict, just a general 2A rally, on a day where the Nationals understandably got 100X to 500X the number of people for a feel-good story.

We had a nice day out. Appreciate it for what it was and don't throw each other under the bus - that doesn't help anyone.
Yes, despite everything, it was heartening to see lots of people gathered, even if it didn't flood the lawn. The energy was really great. We should learn from it to have a better rally next time.