By John Naese
I don’t like messing with electricity, so I call an electrician. I’m glad there are electricians.
I don’t like messing with sewage, so I call a plumber. I’m glad there are plumbers.
I don’t like arguing with keyboard kommandos, so I don’t. I’m glad there are GSL members and gun owners of good conscience out there monitoring the gun boards, the facebooks, the twitters of the world, because I try not to.
The people I talk to in person may offer many excuses why they don’t go to the range, or don’t volunteer time at their local club, GSL, or other gun and freedom projects. But what they usually don’t do is call me, GSL, Appleseed, or any other groups I talk to them about “too political”. I may never get through to them, but they are usually polite about it, don’t get in my face and call me or these groups names, or otherwise behave rudely.
The same cannot be said about some folks who hang out on the internet gun boards and forums. Lots of good people are there, but the anonymity of sitting behind a screen somewhere seems to bring out the worst in some people, and those folks have no compunction about wild accusations, name calling, or other ignorant rants.
The real shame of it is that the guys who complain online about the gun groups, shooting programs, or political action think they’ve done something for the country by typing that opinion and hitting send.
“I know that Paul Revere did not just write letters for the Committees of Correspondence; he rowed under the guns of a hostile warship, rode his horse 20 miles at night through hostile patrols, and was captured and escaped, in order to do what was necessary for Liberty. In our example above, the Kommando was so busy being holier than thou online that he didn’t perform the most basic duty of a citizen – voting.”
In a recent example, someone complained that one gun group was “too political”. During the exchange, this person admitted that he didn’t even know his state had recently held a primary election. He then asserted that he did not participate in primaries because he “didn’t want to register” as a member of a certain party.
The punch line? In his state, they have open primaries. He could have participated without ever declaring a party or registering a party affiliation.
This is just one example of a keyboard kommando.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not anti-computer, anti-technology, or anything like that. I edit this newspaper on a computer; I’m online daily and get most of the submissions for GunNews online and through email.
But I know real life is in the real world. I know that Paul Revere did not just write letters for the Committees of Correspondence; he rowed under the guns of a hostile warship, rode his horse 20 miles at night through hostile patrols, and was captured and escaped, in order to do what was necessary for Liberty. In our example above, the Kommando was so busy being holier than thou online that he didn’t perform the most basic duty of a citizen – voting.
There are a lot of Americans that need waking up. At Guns Save Life, we won’t tell you who to vote for, but we WILL tell you it’s extremely important that you vote.
If this Kommando and his online buddies can wake up Americans via some other method, then they should get to it – and the method will probably not involve getting into online arguments with those who ARE doing something. Oh, wait, they probably think “waking up Americans” is militant right wing talk. In fact, they’re so busy thinking that, they forgot to figure out that there are primaries or that in their particular state, they are open primaries and you don’t have to register as a Repub, a Dem, or anything else…
I say all this only to say, don’t argue with doofuses. There are 300 million other Americans that need to be awakened to their heritage and rights. Concentrate on them. Check your email, surf the web for a few minutes – then get up and do something.