and while I understand that train of thought ......... have we as gun owners not given up enough already?
.....
the exceptionally small % of people who are just evil/bad/deranged ...... if we actually targeted THOSE people, none of the rest of the 330 million in the USA would have to give up anything
The general (though understandable) mistake that Pro 2A folks make when discussing guns is they talk to non gun owners with the same train of reasoning as they do with others who are Pro 2A.
And it doesn't work. It just doesn't.
There are simply more non gun owners in America than gun owners and Pro 2A have to recognize that this large group simply doesn't truly understand the culture, the laws, the conflicts, the cost, the legal questions and the struggle. And that's fair. People struggle to manage their day to day lives, they don't focus on what's not in front of them.
It's not going to work for Pro 2A to ask non gun owners to behave out of their own self interests or perceived self interests. What's going to work is for Pro 2A to start talking to non gun owners in a manner that leads towards their self interests.
You can do that two ways, you can increase the number of new/first time gun owners period, making all gun related issues immediately relevant, or you can find a logistical pathway to get more people into a track towards gun ownership when they are young.
1)
The NRA should develop, build and give away extremely basic "break open" single barreled shotguns. While this won't be extremely cheap, nor will it be massively expensive if you consider what's spent on lobbying/advertising, etc, etc. This also will allow simple insert adapters to be made, to be given away or sold, that convert the single barreled shotgun into a 22 caliber or 9mm or etc, etc.
You want deep background checks done internally, classes and training given and these weapons issued out to law abiding citizens, you especially want small business owners.
Journalist Tim Pool made a good point. When he wasn't a gun owner, he simply didn't have the time or inclination to pay attention to go on with what happened with gun laws and gun regulation. Once he became a gun owner, in response to all the 2020 rioting, he said he became very invested in the new issue that "something was going to be taken away from him"
New gun owners are votes. Votes change everything.
2)
The NRA should promote paintball. I've discussed this before many times. Paintball is seen as a "sport". It's not aggressive or threatening. It can be framed as getting exercise and learning to work as a team. But it's a natural pathway to get young people towards becoming firearm owners. It's a progressive "ramp in" that helps someone see the possible interest in using something that fires a projectile to hit a target.
Paintball is not cheap, but it doesn't have to be expensive on a large scale. You do need some open land. Lots of Pro 2A owners with land who would share it on weekends for the cause. Yes the NRA would have to invest in buying paintball gear in bulk, but no true optics campaign is cost free.
This is also an opportunity to create bridge programs like mentoring, job internships, tutoring, life skills, etc, etc that look like positive outreach from the gun community to the overall larger community.
If existing gun manufacturers see the natural pathway towards creating embryo customers, they will also support it.
New gun owners are customers. Money spent by customers means profit. Profits mean cash on hand for political leverage. Political leverage means winning fights in Congress.
I've said this for 15 years here on FBG -
Success means needing a practical logistical pathway towards your end goal. It's not enough to say society needs to do this or people need to understand that, there needs to be a real plan that has progressive steps towards what you want. Something concrete that's scalable and framed to get your narrative out there.
If you want more favorable gun laws in the future, you need the American population to have more new gun owners coming into the market at an exponential rate.
No one can stop mass shootings. That's the reality. Part of the problem with mental health around the world is the overgrowth of the population without natural checks and balances. Human beings were meant to work in much smaller tribes and those who could not coexist in a functional tribal setting were cast out or left behind or perished naturally. There is no way to fix a problem that spans across multiple generations and is a function of modern society and the development of the nation state.
Are my solutions the best ideas? Maybe. Maybe not. But they are dynamic and looking for logistical success first. My thinking is naturally "out of the box" but this is clearly an out of the box problem at hand.
You cannot change people without appealing to their self interests first. This is a reality of human behavior that will always be true.