***NATIONAL RALLY 11/2/19 POOFA RESPONSE***

[Justin///M]

I'm mostly of the same opinion.
With low turnout; it's mostly just preaching to the choir.

We need HIGH turnout to get notice of news media and politicians.

I feel the way a local pro 2A local organization said it. paraphrase: "If you live within 200 miles of D.C.; there's no excuse for not going."

It was held on a Saturday. Enough notice was given for people that do not work on Saturdays.
I know A LOT of supposedly pro 2A people who had no reasonable excuse for not going.
Clearly they value their bullcrap excuse more than their freedom.
And I'm going to let them know what I think of them.

The sad thing to me is that 50000 people showed up for that sports team..., but barely any show up for their rights. YM made a good point that if 10% of Hickoks followers showed up, it would be an army. Even 1%. He made that dig, though, while not showing up himself. YM claimed he couldn't afford to come and I offered to pay his way, publicly in his comments. He replied some bullshit. I do find it funny that he has commentary on something that he himself couldn't even be bothered to attend even after someone offered to eliminate his supposed concern, cost.

[Justin///M]

You can't just pull a massive rally out of your ass. It takes money and time and effort - and a lot of each.

Just like a classified ad selling a gun has a very low success rate when there is no info or photo, you can't expect a massive rally turnout without the proper work put in by people who know HOW to put a rally together.

Timing is a big factor as well. Without a motivating factor like fear or anger, the fence sitters are not going to make any effort to attend.

I don't think the turnout was a "bad" thing. It was only slightly less than I had anticipated based on the time frame from when it was announced to the time it happened.
Sure, it presents a "bad optic" to see a small crowd, but at least there WAS a crowd. It's just a matter of drawing a larger crowd te next time around.

The bolded is primary. The antis have billionaire backers that pay their way. Buses, planes, trains, lodging, meals, all covered. Fuck, hotels donate entire fucking floors for them. We need a billionaire backer. Or, how about some of these gun companies start ponying up?

[Emptymag]

Do you know why the NRA uses free gifts and fear tactics to gain members?

Because people are people.


It's all about marketing.

[caelum]

The sad thing to me is that 50000 people showed up for that sports team..., but barely any show up for their rights. YM made a good point that if 10% of Hickoks followers showed up, it would be an army. Even 1%. He made that dig, though, while not showing up himself. YM claimed he couldn't afford to come and I offered to pay his way, publicly in his comments. He replied some bullshit. I do find it funny that he has commentary on something that he himself couldn't even be bothered to attend even after someone offered to eliminate his supposed concern, cost.

Normally I find YM amusing, but it is a bit irritating to hear him complain so much when a lot of people spent time and money to reach DC. I don't blame him for not coming, he's thousands of miles away, but he could maybe shut up a little and appreciate what was accomplished.

The big thing though is that while everyone seems to be blaming the ambivalence/laziness of gun owners, I think the real issue was the PR handling of this event. I only had learned ~3 weeks before that it was happening. It seemed to appear suddenly and on very short notice. It's one thing to attend something in your state on short notice, but when you're trying to rally people across the nation to converge on DC, you should be looking to promote this thing on the order of several months. I don't know when you all learned about this, but it seems like promotions really started 3-4 weeks ago.

Think of the glass half-full. If the 2A community could organize a modest rally in 3-4 weeks, imagine what would have been achieved if the PR was given more time and approached more strategically. We had hundreds of people come to DC despite the parade traffic on incredibly short notice, amped up with signs and flags in hand. To me, that's a very strong showing of how dedicated our community is. We just need better coordination/organization.

[Hodgie]

The YM is nothing but an attention whore who likes firearms. If something isn’t about him then he tries to make it about him even if it’s a negative. He’s shit on so many other guys who are actively doing positive things for the 2A community simply because it’s not him.

I grew tired of his narcissism a few months back and stoped watching.

[pennlineman]

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.

[Justin///M]

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.

QFMFT

(quoted for mother fuckin truth)

[Justin///M]

Normally I find YM amusing, but it is a bit irritating to hear him complain so much when a lot of people spent time and money to reach DC. I don't blame him for not coming, he's thousands of miles away, but he could maybe shut up a little and appreciate what was accomplished.

The big thing though is that while everyone seems to be blaming the ambivalence/laziness of gun owners, I think the real issue was the PR handling of this event. I only had learned ~3 weeks before that it was happening. It seemed to appear suddenly and on very short notice. It's one thing to attend something in your state on short notice, but when you're trying to rally people across the nation to converge on DC, you should be looking to promote this thing on the order of several months. I don't know when you all learned about this, but it seems like promotions really started 3-4 weeks ago.

Think of the glass half-full. If the 2A community could organize a modest rally in 3-4 weeks, imagine what would have been achieved if the PR was given more time and approached more strategically. We had hundreds of people come to DC despite the parade traffic on incredibly short notice, amped up with signs and flags in hand. To me, that's a very strong showing of how dedicated our community is. We just need better coordination/organization.

This is why I get on these guys for shunning social media.

[scruff]

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.

QFMFT

(quoted for mother fuckin truth)

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.

[Justin///M]

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.

Also good points.