Jan 17 Phila. Witness on Gun Violence?? - opportunity to educate some folks

[lprgcFrank]

I saw this in church on Sunday -

http://www.peacegathering2009.org/sa...ss/take-action

looks like another exampel of well meaning but woefully uninformed folks will again blame inanimate objects instead of holding people responsible for their actions.

What caught my attention is they are planning a march and rally in front of a local gun store. I'm thinking if we can find out which store they plan to march on - we could be there OC'ing and passing out the Gun Rights pamphlets.

Whaddayathink?

[bpvet]

I saw this in church on Sunday -

http://www.peacegathering2009.org/sa...ss/take-action

looks like another exampel of well meaning but woefully uninformed folks will again blame inanimate objects instead of holding people responsible for their actions.

What caught my attention is they are planning a march and rally in front of a local gun store. I'm thinking if we can find out which store they plan to march on - we could be there OC'ing and passing out the Gun Rights pamphlets.

Whaddayathink?

Yikes!!!!! You'd be heading against Gods call. Let us know if you need help when you know what store it is.

[Philbert]

I think any counter protest would need to strongly emphasize that gun owners are also in favor of peace and believe that nonviolence is a virtue. The media will try to portray you as being anti-peace. If you show up with a bunch of gun rights pamphlets you will at best look indifferent to peace.

[lprgcFrank]

I think any counter protest would need to strongly emphasize that gun owners are also in favor of peace and believe that nonviolence is a virtue. The media will try to portray you as being anti-peace. If you show up with a bunch of gun rights pamphlets you will at best look indifferent to peace.

I'm not following you - how is educating on rights not peaceful? We should just let the anti's get their message without challenging inaccurate assumptions?

[Siobhra]

The press will paint it as "Gun Owners counter protest to support the culture of death". "The gun owners showed up at today's demonstration to spread the message that they don't care about the children that die each year".

Or do you think the press will support us? Any demonstration is a risk. You must have a good showing or risk having it go against you. And if the press is against you then you need an even bigger show to force them to cover it. I have marched in a lot of demonstrations over the years where we had hundreds of marchers more than the others and see the stories in the press make it look like we had less than a handful and the other side had thousands.

One in particular I remember the group from Phila that I was part of filled 4 buses. That was just Phila. The group counter protesting us was less than a dozen TOTAL. Yet the press made it look like they out numbered us.

Who does the Philly press favor?

[Philbert]

I'm not following you - how is educating on rights not peaceful? We should just let the anti's get their message without challenging inaccurate assumptions?

Educating on rights is peaceful, but it's not promoting peace. The point of this protest is not to deny gun rights, it's to promote peace. The implication is that they care about ending criminal violence and gun stores do not. Affirming that gun rights exist does not directly help counter that implication.

[adp113]

DELETED. Previously banned troll. ~Staff

[Philbert]

Is Philly not a First Class city? I thought OC was not allowed in a first class city.

It is with an LTCF.

[LowCapacity]

If whatever gun shop they plan on protesting in front of follows the law and only sells to legal buyers.... how will that stop gun violence? Certainly if a shop is knowingly selling guns to those who aren't allowed to own them they will be shut down and the FFL holder arrested. Last I checked criminals are stealing guns or having their "baby's momma" buy 'em for them.

I wanna see these people and the anti-gun politicians go into the bad neighborhoods and protest gang members and criminals who are causing the gun violence.... think they'll do it?

[XD40coyote]

The VCDL in VA did something similar last year with counter protesting against antis doing a VA Tech victim "lie-in" in Richmond. The VCDL people had signs that said "guns save lives" and were OCing.

We could do well to learn something from our OC buddies to the south.

You want to try something like this in Philly, go to opencarry.org and go to the forums and go to the VA forum. From there get in touch with the VCDL folks and ask them how they do their counter protests. The VCDL seems to have done quite well promoting gun rights in VA, same can be had in PA. Though Philly may be a totally different animal from Richmond, so some adjusting may be needed. Maybe get Pink Pistols and the 2A Sisters in on it, so it is more diversified.