According to a Gallup poll from 2005, 41% of gun owners identified themselves as Republicans, 27% as independents and 23% as Democrats. A non-partisan approach to this issue makes for a bigger tent and more political leverage in the long run.
Doverham, I can appreciate what you, Gunflint Charlie, and others are trying to say, but have you read jack rabbit's posts? The ones that follow yours are especially revealing if you can understand them. I have been using my "Incoherent Rambling to English" translator.
It appears he's saying that the gun rights advocates here, and the NRA, have been advocating a gun "rights without responsibilities" position. Frankly, I haven't seen that. It isn't Jim, or DaveK, or myself who thinks gangbangers that spray the streets of the hood should be promptly provided kinder, gentler arrests, low bail, shorter sentences, and parole just so they can excercise thier RKBA as recidivists. Those remedies come from the whacked out left that has largely co-opted the Democrat Party as their home base. They would rather place blame on the inanimate object than the poor criminal who is likely a victim of some sort of discrimination.
It seems to me that Democrats who claim to support gun rights could be doing more to reclaim their own party from the extreme left. No one denies that there are many Democrat politicians that remain friendly to gun owners, and I, as an Independant have no problem voting for them. I do have a problem with Democrat gun owners who would have us believe that certain Democrat politicians with extreme anti-gun records are not a threat to RKBA. I have said that is either stupid or dishonest. I fail to see where it would be useful or productive to act or think otherwise.
Neither Wayne Lapierre, nor "Charlaton" Heston, nor Thomas Jefferson, et al are/were proponents of arming thugs and murderers. They obviously realize that more laws do not deter those bent on violent crime. There was murder and mayhem in 18th century America just as there is today, and that is why we see in the framers writings that their advocacy for arms posession was as much for personal protection as it was for militia purposes.
Speaking of the militia, no one here has been advocating armed overthrow of the government. Sane folks only see that as an extreme last resort. I pray our citizens never have to oppose tyranny with force here. But where it does happen, (Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iran, Mongolia, etc.)the citizenry with even limited access to arms tend to fare better than those denied arms. The major tack here has been to achieve our goals via a fair and honest election process, supporting those candidates that stand with us, and exposing and removing those who are against us.
So where is this "rights without responsibilities crap"? And where are the "paranoid loudmouths" who are serving up this Koolaid? jack is hallucinating about lines in the sand and calling us loudmouths and kicking the aforementioned sand in our faces, just because he can. I'll agree that we are best served by being unified, but I don't see where excluding a few pathetic nutbars will hurt us in the long run.
