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<PRE> 
                          Things You Can Do
                                  To
                        Defend Your Gun Rights

                         (Electronic Edition)
                                   
                            Alan Gottlieb
                                 and
                              Dave Kopel

Other Books by the Authors

By Alan M. Gottlieb

        The Rights of Gun Owners
        The Gun Grabbers
        Gun Rights Fact Book

By David B. Kopel

        The Samurai, the Mountie, and Cowboy: Should America Adopt the
        Gun Controls of Other Democracies?

        Gun Control in Great Britain: Saving Lives or Constricting
        Liberty?

Distributed By
        Merril Press
        PO Box 1682 Bellevue, WA 98009

Electronic Edition Published and Distributed By
        Lektra Press
        PO Box 1120, Merrimack, NH  03054-1120

        info@lektra.com
        R. Craig Peterson, Publisher
        in co-operation with Mainstream Electronic Information Services.

THINGS YOU CAN DO TO DEFEND YOUR GUN RIGHTS

A Merril Press Book/published by arrangement with the authors.

Electronic Edition Published by permission of Merril Press by Lektra
Press, PO Box 1120, Merrimack, NH  03054-1120.
Telephone (603) 672-8333

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1993 by Allan M. Gottlieb and David B. Kopel

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems without written permission, except in
the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and
reviews.

For information, permissions, or additional copies of this book,
contact Merril Press, P.O. Box 1682, Bellevue, Washington 98009.
Telephone (206) 454-7009

Hardcopy ISBN: 0-936783-10-9   Electronic ISBN: 1-886281-34-3

Printed in the United States of America 

Dedication

To our wives Deirdre and Julie, our best friends.

User's Warning

        This book attempts to provide information about methods to
preserve and protect the rights we all share. Some of the advice is
based on first-hand experience, and some is based on recommendations
of others. While we've tried to make the book as accurate as possible,
we can't promise or guarantee particular results. It is the reader's
responsibility to put the book to use in an appropriate manner.

A Note on Usage

        Half the people in country are female, so we thought it
inappropriate to use ``he'' and ``him'' exclusively. At the same time, we
thought it cumbersome to always say ``he or she.'' So some of the time
we use ``he'' by itself, and sometimes we use ``she'' by itself. The
gender pronoun chosen never has any significance, and everything in
this book applies equally to men and women.

Introduction

``IF JUST ONE TENTH OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY WHO OWN GUNS WOULD
RAISE THEIR VOICES TO THE POLITICIANS, OR CONTRIBUTE A SMALL AMOUNT OF
THEIR TIME AND MONEY, WE COULD STOP THE BAN-THE-GUN CROWD.'' Former
California State Assemblyman Tom McClintock

        If you own a gun, you can defend yourself against a criminal
attack. But how can you defend yourself against people who want to
take away your right to even own a gun?  This book tells you how.

        In the struggle over the right to bear arms, the gun
prohibitionists start with a tremendous organizational advantage. The
anti-gun movement is hierarchical--that is, its direction comes from
the top down. A few professional strategists decide the issue of the
year: how a waiting period will supposedly stop drug dealers from
getting guns (how about a waiting period for drugs, so they couldn't
get drugs either); how ``plastic handguns'' are being used by
terrorists (even though there's no such thing as a plastic handgun);
the record numbers of toddlers being killed in gun accidents (record
low, that is); the epidemic of mass murder by ``assault weapon''
(another gun control fib).

        From there, the gun control lobbies feed the story to their
ventriloquist dummies in the media, such as Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw.
The establishment media's contempt for gun owners is so intense that
the veracity of the story is of little import. Thus, a new issue is
born. Politicians who confuse media opinion with public opinion are
intimidated into enacting more and more severe restrictions on gun
owners.

        The right to bear arms movement, in contrast, works from the
grassroots up. We don't get hundred of millions of dollars in free
advertising (thinly disguised as news shows) from the media. The
strength of the right to bear arms movement comes almost entirely from
individual citizens who take up the burden of defending the rights of
all Americans. Thus, the battle is joined: the prohibition forces and
the media, versus ordinary citizens.

        Happily, ordinary citizens can do some things in large numbers
that Dan Rather can't: they can write letters to Congress; they can
vote gun prohibitionists out of office; and they can even push the
media to re-examine its attitudes. We can pass on a free society to
the next generations--if we will roll up our sleeves to do the hard
work of preserving liberty.

        Of course there are plenty of excuses for not getting
involved, like:

o         The NRA will take care of everything. The problem is that the
power of the NRA, and the rest of the pro-rights movement, is based on
grassroots strength.

o         Other people don't do their share, so why should I? Well, lots
of other people, including the folks we mention in this book, do their
share and a whole lot more.

o         The gun confiscators are going to win no matter what we do.
The gun control lobbies certainly want you to think that. But they're
wrong. In the last 20 years, America has become significantly more
urbanized. Yet in many states, the right to bear arms is stronger than
it was 20 years ago.

        The name of this book isn't ``The 500 Commandments.'' You
don't have to do everything suggested here; and unless you have 48
hours in a day, you couldn't anyway. While some of the ideas are very
simple to implement (e.g., register to vote, join the NRA), many
others take a lot of follow-through. For the more time-consuming
projects, take on just one or two at a time, starting with the ones
that best fit your inclinations and talents. As you gain experience in
the struggle for freedom, new ideas and projects will suggest
themselves.

        While these ideas are geared towards Second Amendment issues,
many of our suggestions are just as applicable to folks who are
fighting to protect other freedoms in the Bill of Rights. We hope this
book is useful to them as well.

PART I

EDUCATING YOURSELF,

AND OTHERS

        American writer Gertrude Stein once described her hometown
Oakland: ``When you get there, there isn't any there there.'' Gun
control is a lot like Oakland: There isn't any reality there. The
people who want to take your guns have loads of misplaced emotion,
prejudice, and disinformation to feed the press. But they're in short
supply of facts and statistics.

        This section details the public information side of the gun
rights debate: how to inform yourself about the issues, and how to
inform others.

1. Feed Your Head: Books

``THE THINGS I WANT TO KNOW ARE IN BOOKS; MY BEST FRIEND IS THE MAN
WHO'LL GET ME A BOOK I AIN'T READ.'' Abraham Lincoln

        Defenders of the right to bear arms have facts and logic on
their side, but the gun prohibitionists have the media on their side.
Most people get their information only from the media; hence, most
people are badly misinformed about the facts of the gun issue. One of
the responsibilities of being a gun owner is rationally explaining the
facts about gun ownership to your friends and acquaintances. Below is
a list of some of the best books and other materials written about the
right to bear arms, so you can arm yourself with knowledge.

        If you're fairly new to the gun issue, the volume of materials
available may seem daunting. Don't worry. There are good books for
every level of knowledge about the right to bear arms.

Starters

        Research Reports published by the Second Amendment Foundation
are a series of short and informative pamphlets about various aspects
of the right to keep and bear arms. The Reports are issued as the
result of SAF's continuous research into the social, political, and
legal aspects of firearm rights. Current titles include: Supreme Court
Decisions Regarding The Second Amendment; Saving Seven Days Time While
Fighting Crime: Instant Background Checks as an Alternative to the
Brady Bill; The Role of Firearms In Self Defense; Bans on
Semi-Automatics: Unconstitutional Hysteria; Handgun Control: Its
Threat to Rifle & Shotgun Ownership; Handgun Purchase Waiting Periods:
Do they Reduce Crime? Each of these reports are fact-filled sources
for knowledge about gun use and ownership in America.

        The reports are available at no charge from the Second
Amendment Foundation, 12500 NE 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005
1-206-454-7012.

        The National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative
Action (NRA/ILA) publishes its own set of short brochures about gun
control issues. Titles include: Ten Myths About Gun Control, Gun Law
Failures, A Push for Gun Control, Criminals Don't Wait--Why Should
You?, Semi-Automatic Firearms: A Citizen's Choice, The Armed Citizen,
Don't Buy HCI Lies, 1993 NRA Firearms Fact Card, It Can Happen to You,
Interstate Transportation, and 1993 Compendium of State Laws. NRA also
publishes short brochures about the gun laws of each state, as well as
separate brochures for Washington, DC and New York City (two
jurisdictions whose low crime rates prove how effective gun control
really is.) The booklets can be obtained from Information and Member
Services, NRA/ILA. For the NRA's address and telephone, see chapter
25.

Books: Two Basics

        The material in the SAF Research Reports and in the NRA/ILA
brochures is a good starting point for educating yourself on the gun
issue. If you don't have much time for reading, the Reports and
brochures provide you with well-researched quick summaries of issues.
But as a Second Amendment activist, you'll likely be interested in
learning more and more about the issue, for your own interest, as well
as to provide support for your activist work.

        An excellent first book on the gun issue The Rights of Gun
Owners by Alan Gottlieb. This compilation of all federal and state
laws relating to guns and ammunition includes everything from
constitutional guarantees to licenses, regulations, concealed weapons,
waiting periods, ammunition purchases, postal regulations, and
crossing state borders. This book details what your rights are, how
those rights are being destroyed, and how to protect yourself from a
government grown too powerful. For those concerned about the
preservation and extension of freedom of gun ownership, this book is a
very good primer.

        $9.95 from Merril Press, P.O. Box 1682, Bellevue, WA 98009. To
order by phone call 1-206-454-7009.

        Another fine first book (and a good second book as well) is
the Gun Rights Fact Book, also by Alan Gottlieb. The book is easy to
read, and organized by topic (i.e., ``Media Bias'', ``Plastic Guns'').
The book is an excellent source for key facts about just about every
gun control issue.

        The book is not footnoted, so it's not particularly suited as
a starting point for research on gun control.

        If you're already a gun rights activist, you may already know
much of the information presented in the Gun Rights Fact Book. If so,
the book is a good tool for you to use by giving it to your
less-informed pro-gun friends.

        $3.95 from the Merril Press, P.O. Box 1682, Bellevue, WA
98009, same phone number as above.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

        Once you're ready to plunge in a little deeper, there are
several sources that provide good overall coverage of the gun control
issue in a readable format. These sources, while written in an
accessible style, are aimed at a somewhat more sophisticated audience
than the two Alan Gottlieb books we just described. These sources also
contain extensive footnotes or endnotes which, while not providing an
obstacle to persons who just want to read the main text, allow persons
who want to press deeper to find out where to go.

        Guns, Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic Assessment of
Gun Control is a gem by Don B. Kates, Jr. For the last two decades,
Kates has been the star intellectual of the pro-gun movement. Kates'
prodigious writing has been published in popular magazines like
Harpers and scholarly journals like the Michigan Law Review that had
never before printed anything pro-gun. Virtually every academic who
has defended the right to bear arms has consulted with Kates. A
prolific pro-Second Amendment writer, Kates has opened up more minds
on the subject of gun control than anyone in the history of the United
States. This 64 page velo-bound monograph (short study) is an
excellent summary Kates' work, particularly regarding the evidence
about gun control and self-defense.

        Kates demolishes the myth that domestic homicides are
perpetrated by nice people who just happened to have a gun around when
their wife burned the dinner, dissects the pompous assertions of white
male academics that women are better off submitting to rape than
resisting with a gun, and puts to rest the anti-gun lobby's phony
claims about childhood gun accidents. Eight dollars from the Pacific
Research Institute for Public Policy, 177 Post St., San Francisco, CA
94108.  1-415-989-0833.

        Trust the People: The Case Against Gun Control, by David B.
Kopel.  Here's a review from gun activist Neal Knox's computer
bulletin board: ``A relatively short (32 typewritten pages) well
documented (plus 20 pages of references) overview of the basic issues.
One of the best things you can use to convince an individual with a
potentially open mind. It's fact filled, well written, forcefully
argued, and makes sure to hit all the right liberal hot buttons (civil
rights, racial and sexual discrimination, etc.). For the price, you
have no excuse for not getting it.''

        $4 from the Cato Institute, 1000 Mass. Ave. NW, Washington DC
20001-5403. (202) 842-0200. Request ``Policy Analysis #109, Trust the
People.''

        The Gun Control Debate: You Decide, by Lee Nisbet provides an
excellent pro-and-con overview of the gun control topic. Nisbet went
to pro-rights and pro-control organizations, and asked them to suggest
the best essays which had been written in favor of their respective
positions. The 24 essays collected in Nisbet's book offer a ``greatest
hits'' collection of pro-rights scholarship, and also provide an
up-close look at the best material the pro-control side has to offer.
The contrast in the quality of scholarship between the pro-rights side
and the pro-control side is sometimes startling. Studying the
pro-control essays gives you a heads-up on the arguments you will most
likely encounter from pro-control folks.

        Available from Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 800-767-1241 (24
hours), or from Merril Press (address and phone above).

Advanced Stuff

        Without any doubt, one book stands out at the single best
source of information about guns and gun control in America: Point
Blank: Guns and Violence in America, by Gary Kleck. Simply put, Point
Blank is the best overview of gun control that can be found.
Summarizing the findings of other scholars, and presenting original
research, Kleck demonstrates the folly of harsh gun controls.

        Is the average gun owner so stupid and clumsy that he risks
killing himself accidentally with the gun he brought for protection?
Kleck analyzes gun accidents in detail, and shows that most accident
perpetrators are outrageously reckless and irresponsible, and have
little in common with the average gun owner. Kleck also observes that
most ``accidents'' said to occur while cleaning a gun are really
suicides.

        Is the gun in the home or business a menace to society? Just
the opposite. Through thoroughly documented numerical data, Kleck
shows that Americans use handguns at least 645,000 times a year for
self-defense (usually without needing to fire a shot). The high rate
of American gun ownership explains why burglary of occupied residences
is so low in comparison to the rates in other countries. Overall, an
American criminal's chances of getting shot by his victim are at least
as great as his chances of going to jail.

        Have gun registration, gun prohibition, or any of the rest of
the gun control litany had any statistically perceptible effect in
reducing crime? The answer is ``no,'' suggests Kleck, and he does a
particularly good job in skewering the pseudo-science that the
anti-gun lobbies claim supports their cause.

        While intended to be accessible to a general readership, Point
Blank is written for a rigorous academic audience. Accordingly, some
paragraphs of the book delve into technical discussion of quantitative
sociology that will be over the head of anyone without at least two
semesters of a college statistics classes and a fond memory of slide
rules.

        The book is well-organized, with a strong table of contents,
index, subheadings, and other reader aids. Thus, instead of reading
the book straight through, you can use it as a guide to all the
research regarding gun control in modern America. So when you want to
write a letter to the editor and supply the real facts about the
(extremely low) rate of childhood gun accidents, Point Blank will have
all the information available right there. And every chapter is
supplemented by at least a half-dozen tables providing a wealth of
statistics about guns and their use.

        In short, Point Blank is a book that deserves to be read by
anyone with a serious interest in the gun control debate. Scrupulously
honest, Kleck comes to the politically incorrect conclusion that guns
save lives, and gun control does not. As a result, Kleck has been
vilified by anti-gun forces such as The New Republic magazine, in
thoughtless editorials that attack Kleck by misstating what he says.

        While coming under fire from the anti-gun forces, Point Blank
is not entirely supportive of the pro-gun side. In the rare cases
where the evidence shows that a particular gun control has worked,
Kleck says so.

        And while Kleck demonstrates the useless or dangerous nature
of most of the gun control lobby's agenda, Kleck does propose his own
set of controls.

        Kleck favors a national ``instant check'' on all gun sales. He
would require that even transfers between private individuals be
routed through licensed gun dealers, so that the instant check could
be applied to those transactions.

        About 84% of gun sales could be approved immediately, as with
a credit card check. But for the other sales, Kleck admits, a
substantial number of legitimate buyers would be disapproved
initially, and then required to go through a weeks-long process to
clear their names, thanks to the poor quality of criminal justice
records in many states. (For example, if you have the same name as
someone who was arrested for a non-violent felony, and was later found
not guilty, you could easily be turned down by the ``instant check.'')

        Moreover, background checks of any kind, including the
``instant check'' do sometimes find ineligible buyers, but almost
never catch a criminal trying to acquire a crime gun. The typical
``criminal'' caught by a background check is more like the man who got
into a fist fight in a bar ten years ago, and never realized that his
third-degree assault conviction disqualified him from owning a gun.

        And besides, the very rare criminal who can't get a black
market gun, and who wants to buy a crime gun from a gun store, can
simply ask a friend with a clean record to make the purchase for him.

        The negligible benefits of the instant check are outweighed by
their substantial costs, which Kleck fails to fully consider. First of
all, a large new government bureaucracy would be required to
administer the check. Kleck suggests paying for the bureaucracy
through a $10/gun purchase. While ten dollars may not seem like much
to a hunter buying a $500 rifle, it's quite a bit to a young woman who
can barely afford $40 for a self-defense handgun. Moreover, once the
tax was established, the anti-gun lobbies would immediately begin
pressing to raise it as high as possible.

        Like almost every scholar who has studied the issue, Kleck
agrees that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to
bear arms.  Yet the Kleck instant check amounts to people being
restrained from exercising their Constitutional rights until the
government gives them permission. Kleck, who is a strong civil
libertarian, ought to be more sensitive to the Constitutional policy
against prior restraints.

        And lastly, it's very difficult to design an instant check
system that can't be perverted into a registry of gun owners.

        But whatever you think of Kleck's conclusions, his book on the
whole is outstanding. It is precisely the kind of carefully argued,
meticulously researched scholarship that the gun debate needs. If you
ever speak out regarding the right to bear arms, if you ever write
letters to the editor, if you ever write your state legislators, you
will find Point Blank a wonderful resource.

        Point Blank is published by Aldine de Gruyter (Hawthorne, New
York), and is available in high-quality bookstores. Any bookstore can
special order it for you.

        Unfortunately, Point Blank, is published only in hard cover,
and at 512 pages, the book retails for a very hefty $59.95. Despite
the high price, Point Blank is worth every penny. If you can't afford
it, ask your local library to buy it. Most libraries that get two or
three requests for a book within a few weeks will strongly consider a
purchase.

        Under the Gun: Weapons Crime & Violence, by James Wright,
Peter Rossi, and Kathleen Daly. The authors are some of the best
sociologists in the United States. They favored gun control, and set
out to collect all the evidence for it in one place. This book is the
result. After taking a hard look at the data, the authors changed
their minds, and announced that there is no proof that gun control
does any good. The book's only serious limitation is that it was
written in the early 1980s, and therefore does not cover some of the
more recent research, and does not discuss some of the issues that
have arisen in recent years, such as so-called ``assault weapons.''

        $44.95 cloth, $24.95 paperback from Aldine de Gruyter, 200 Saw
Mill River Rd., Hawthorne, NY 10532. 1-914-747-0110.

        Armed and Dangerous, by Jim Wright and Peter Rossi reports the
results of a 1981 National Institute of Justice study of felony
prisoners in ten state prison systems. The study provides overwhelming
evidence of how guns in the right hands enhance public safety: 56%
percent of the prisoners said that a criminal would not attack a
potential victim who was known to be armed. Thirty-nine percent of the
felons had personally decided not to commit a crime because they
thought the victim might have a gun, and 8% said the experience had
occurred ``many times.'' Criminals in states with higher civilian gun
ownership rates worried the most about armed victims. At the same
time, the criminals reported that gun control laws had little or no
effect on their ability to obtain crime guns.

        Like Under the Gun, the book is published by Aldine de
Gruyter, 200 Saw Mill River Rd., Hawthorne, NY 10532. 1-914-747-0110.
Prices are $39.95 cloth, and $19.95 paperback.

        The Journal on Firearms and Public Policy. Published by the
Center for the Study of Firearms & Public Policy, the Journal provides
a forum for publication of scholarly articles on firearms and their
relation to social, legal, and political issues. It accepts papers on
a broad range of scholarly topics related to gun ownership, use,
carrying, law and policy issues. The Journal also reprints important
past articles in order to provide a unified reference source for
researching firearms issues.

        The primary purposes of the Journal are to encourage serious
researchers to explore issues related to firearms and their effect on
society; to provide a convenient place for the publication of research
results; and to provide an information source which can be used by
policy makers to guide their decisions. The Second Amendment
Foundation sponsors the Journal to encourage objective research. It is
the intention of the editors to reprint articles of scholarly quality
regardless of their conclusions for or against the Foundation's
positions on controversial issues.

        Volumes 1 and 2 are nearly out of print and available in
limited quantities only. Volumes 3 and 4 will likely remain available
for the next few years. Volume 3 includes a reprint of University of
Texas Law Professor Sanford Levinson's ground-breaking essay on the
Second Amendment; an article on law-enforcement lobbying and the
Second Amendment, by NRA researcher Paul Blackman; a short article on
how gun control endangers all Constitutional rights, by attorney David
I.  Caplan; and an original article ``Gun-making as a Cottage
Industry,'' which discusses the types of handguns that would be
produced by home workshops in the event of gun prohibition.

        Volume 4 includes an article analyzing New York City's law
requiring mandatory jail terms for illegal gun possession; several
articles about the original meaning of the Second Amendment; and an
article about the unintended consequences of gun control.

        Issues available, for ten dollars apiece, from the Second
Amendment Foundation, 12500 NE 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005
1-206-454-7012.

        Law Abiding Criminals by John Kaplan, Don Kates, and Raymond
Kessler. The purpose of this monograph, which contains three articles
by noted sociologists and criminologists, is to illustrate the lesson
learned time and again that government is not an effective instrument
for social engineering. That is, history has proven that when
government outlaws something desired by a substantial segment of a
population, the populace simply ignores the government edict or
devises methods to circumvent the law. Ultimately, once the law is
recognized as a failure, it is abandoned, but in the meantime what has
been accomplished is to make otherwise law-abiding Americans members
of the criminal class.

        Law-Abiding Criminals was produced to present the views of
those who question the efficacy of an all-encompassing handgun ban.
Written by individuals with first-hand experience in the
criminal-defense field, the authors share a common opinion that a
total handgun ban would experience enforcement difficulties similar to
those encountered during alcohol prohibition and drug interdiction
campaigns.

        Available from the Second Amendment Foundation, 1250 NE 10th
Place, Bellevue, WA 98005. 1-206-454-7012.

History of the Right to Bear Arms

        That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional
Right, by Stephen P. Halbrook: This is by far the best historical book
of the legal development of the Second Amendment in the United States.
The research is thorough, and the reasoning insightful. The book has
been accorded the high honor of being cited as an authoritative source
in an article in the Yale Law Journal--Akhil Reed Amar's ``The Bill of
Rights as a Constitution,'' (vol. 100). Liberty Tree Press,
1-800-345-2888; $12.95.

        Halbrook's other book, A Right to Bear Arms: State and Federal
Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees is less essential. The
book is mostly a history of state arms right guarantees in the during
the American Revolution and Early Republic. For a historian, the book
is an indispensable reference. For a general reader, it may be too
densely written. The very steep price slapped on the book by publisher
Greenwood Press is an indication that the market is library sales more
than the average gun owner. Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West,
Westport, CT 06881.

        The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Report of the US Senate
Subcommittee on the Constitution. In 1982, the US Senate decided to
take a look at the original intent of the authors of the Second
Amendment. The Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution unanimously
concluded that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to
keep and bear arms. Although the Government Printing Office version of
the book has gone out of print, the book has been reprinted by the
Second Amendment Foundation. 1-206-454-7012. The book is also
reprinted volume 1 of Gun Control and the Constitution (discussed
below).

        The Origin of the Second Amendment, by David Young. The book
reprints 480 documents from the period surrounding the introduction
and ratification of the Second Amendment. Included are newspaper
articles, pamphlets, letters to the editor, debates from the federal
Constitutional convention, debates from the state ratifying
conventions, and Congressional debates.

        Author David Young has brought together, for the first time,
all of the original source material regarding what the Second
Amendment meant to the nation that enacted it. The book opens in the
summer of 1787 with the federal Constitutional Convention debating
Congressional powers regarding the militia.

        The final major document of the book is a January 29, 1791
article in the Independent Gazetteer (a Philadelphia newspaper), in
which the author, who identifies himself only as ``A Farmer'' warns:
``Under every government the dernier [last] resort of the people, is
an appeal to the sword; whether to defend themselves against the open
attacks of a foreign enemy, or to check the insidious encroachments of
domestic foes.''

        In between the first and last documents is a treasure-trove of
American history. Leafing through these pages, you encounter the great
men who founded our Republic, and whose words speak to us today. Wrote
Tench Coxe, James Madison's friend, in the Feb. 20, 1778 Freeman's
Journal: ``Who are the militia? are they not our selves...Their
swords, and ever other terrible implement of the soldier, are the
birthright of an American.'' (emphasis in original.)

        Hear Patrick Henry thundering from the June 5, 1788 Virginia
ratifying convention: ``Guard with jealous attention the public
liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately,
nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up
that force you are inevitably ruined.''

        The men who speak to us through The Origin of the Second
Amendment harbor no fear that government would interfere with
``sporting'' guns or hunting. They express the greatest apprehension
of select, uniformed military forces, such as the standing army (and
such as the modern National Guard).

        As The Origin of the Second Amendment makes unmistakably
clear, the great object of the Second Amendment was to preserve
liberty by ensuring that the American people would have in their
individual hands the weapons with which to resist federal tyranny. The
``well-regulated militia'' included almost every able-bodied free
male.

        Besides collecting an excellent selection of documents, the
author also provides a good introductory essay summarizing the
historical context of the debate over ratification of the Constitution
and the Bill of Rights, as well as an appendix giving the full text of
all state Bill of Rights from 1787-89, and a very detailed index. This
book was awarded the ``Book of the Year'' prize by Gun World magazine
in 1992.

        The Origin of the Second Amendment is available by mail from
Golden Oak Books, 605 Michigan Street, Ontonagon, Michigan 49953, or
can be special-ordered by your local bookstore (supply them with the
Michigan address, since the publisher is not well-known). The book
goes for $50 plus $5 shipping and handling (plus 4% sales tax for
Michigan residents).

        Origins and Developments of the Second Amendment, by David
Hardy.  In 95 very readable pages, Hardy traces the right to bear arms
from its origins in early English history up through the creation of
the American Second Amendment. The book is broken down into subtopics,
about one per page. Each subtopic contains a two or three paragraph
quote from an original source (such as an English King's law), coupled
with analysis from Hardy.

        The result? A straightforward history of the history of our
right to bear arms, that serves as an excellent introduction to the
topic.

        At the same time, the book's long quotations from original
sources are very useful for more advanced students of the right to
bear arms.

        Hardy's fine book can be special ordered from your local
bookstore. Or you can order the book directly from the publisher,
Blacksmith Corp., at 1-800-531-2665.

Specialized Topics

        The Gun Culture and Its Enemies, edited by William R. Tonso,
takes a detailed look at some neglected angles of the gun control
debate.

        The book includes chapters by sociologist William Tonso and by
Kopel demonstrating the existence of media bias in coverage of gun
control. In another chapter, John Salter, a veteran of the civil
rights movement, details how the use of armed force by civil rights
workers in the 1960s was crucial to the movement's success--because it
deterred murders by the Ku Klux Klan.

        Do sexually inadequate people buy guns to serve as substitute
phallic symbols? Don Kates and Nicole Varzos demolish the notion in
their chapter.

        The Gun Culture and Its Enemies can be ordered for $9.95 in
paperback from Merril Press, P.O. Box 1682, Bellevue, Washington,
98009. 1-206-454-7009.

        The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt
the Gun Controls of Other Democracies?, by David B. Kopel. Everyone
has heard the argument: Other countries have gun control; other
countries have less gun crime, so if we had strict gun control, we'd
have less gun crime. In a comprehensive analysis, The Samurai debunks
the myth that gun control is responsible for the low crime rates in
Japan, Britain, Canada, and other democracies. The book also offers a
provocative survey of the history of firearms, violence, and crime in
America.

        Best-selling novelist Tom Clancy praised the book as ``A
superb piece of scholarship, admirable for its integrity and
painstaking research. Kopel provides the fresh air of reason in a
national debate too often marked by acrimony and prejudice.'' The book
was awarded the Comparative Criminology Book Award by the American
Society of Criminology's Division of Comparative and International
Criminology.

        $28.95 plus shipping, available from the Second Amendment
Foundation, 1250 NE 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005. 1-206-454-7012.
Also available from the publisher, Prometheus Books, at 1-800-767-1241
(24 hours).

        Why Gun Waiting Periods Threaten Public Safety, by David B.
Kopel.  The most detailed analysis available of the arguments for and
against waiting periods. 62 pages, stapled.

        $8 a copy. Independence Institute, 14142 Denver West Parkway
#101; Golden, CO 80401. (303) 279-6536.

        The ``Assault Weapon'' Panic: Political Correctness Takes Aim
at the Constitution, by Eric Morgan and David B. Kopel (revised
edition, April 1993). A 94 page Issue Paper debunking the claims of
persons who want to prohibit semiautomatics.

        $12 a copy. Independence Institute, 14142 Denver West Parkway
#101; Golden, CO 80401. (303) 279-6536.

        Armed and Female. Author Paxton Quigley, a former anti-gun
activist, explains why she now supports a woman's right to keep and
bear arms. The book contains lots of practical advice for a woman
considering buying a gun.

        Available from the Second Amendment Foundation, 1250 NE 10th
Place, Bellevue, WA 98005. 1-206-454-7012.

        Gun Control: The Continuing Debate by Dr. Donald Hook. Dr.
Hook, a former agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is a
professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He was educated
at five US universities and OSI/FBI School in Washington DC and the
Criminological Institute at the University of Vienna. He received a
PhD from Brown University.

        Gun Control: The Continuing Debate was written to inform the
public at large, and it ought to have a place in public and academic
libraries. It is an informative look at the history, sociology and
governmental aspects of the gun control debate written to the high
school and college level. Dr. Hook covers the field of the gun control
landscape in chapters dealing with the history of the right to keep
and bear arms and in chapters arguing for and against the status quo.
Probably the most controversial statements made in the book occur in
the final chapter where Dr. Hook outlines some compromise positions he
sees as valuable.

        Available from Merril Press, P.O. Box 1682, Bellevue, WA
98009, or 1-206-454-7008.

        Gun Control and the Constitution. This three-volume set,
edited by Rutgers University Law Professor Robert J. Cottrol is the
best compilation of all viewpoints of the legal debate regarding the
right to keep and bear arms. The hardcover books, brought out by
Garland Publishing (New York) reprint the best judicial and scholarly
analysis of the Second Amendment. For any researcher concerned with
in-depth legal analysis, the books very useful.

        Unfortunately, the books are also very expensive. And if you
know how to use a law library, you find most of the books' material in
their original sources, and read them in the library for free. On the
other hand, if you can afford them, each volume will add greatly to
your understanding of the legal background to the gun control debate.

        Volume 1, Sources and Explorations of the Second Amendment
($57.00) includes a good introductory essay by Cottrol, reprints of
the US Supreme Court's three major cases dealing with the Second
Amendment, six state court cases, and (perhaps best of all) a full
reprint of the US Senate's 130 page investigation of the historical
record about the Second Amendment., The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
(discussed above). Significantly, the reprint includes several
well-written legal reports which were attached to the Senate report in
the appendix. In contrast, the Second Amendment Foundation reprint of
The Right to Keep includes only the Senate report itself. Garland
Publishing, Inc., 717 Fifth Ave., Suite 2500, NY, NY 10022. (212)
751-7447. fax (212) 308-9399.

        Volume 2, Advocates and Scholars: The Modern Debate on Gun
Control ($62.00) reprints 15 major law journal articles analyzing the
Second Amendment. The selections are scrupulously balanced between
pro-rights and anti-rights articles. The effect, however, is to
strengthen the pro-rights position, since the pro-rights articles are
so much better researched and persuasive.

        Volume 3, Special Topics on Gun Control ($54.00) reprints 9
more law journal articles, involving specialized topics in the Second
Amendment debate.  Most of the articles deal with the English origins
of the right to keep and bear arms, or with the connection between
gun-owning and responsible citizenship, as seen by the generation that
created the Second Amendment. The most interesting article, however,
is final one, written by Robert Cottrol and Raymond T. Diamond, which
explores the history of gun control in the United States as a method
of controlling Afro-Americans.

        And, if the three volume set's $173.00 price tag makes your
wallet tremble with fear, there are plans to bring out a one-volume
paperback (priced around $20.00) containing the best material from the
three volumes. Call the publisher, at the number listed above, for
availability.

        Gun Control: Gateway to Tyranny. The militant pro-rights
organization Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership has
published this interesting analysis of German gun control laws in the
Nazi and pre-Nazi eras. The authors document how laws which might
appear reasonable on paper were used to disarm Jews and other groups
as a first step towards genocide.

        $19.95 plus $2.90 shipping from JPFO, Inc., 2872 S. Wentworth
Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53207. 1-414-769-0760.

Further reading

        All of the above books have bibliographies which will lead you
to excellent articles in scholarly journals and in magazines such as
the American Rifleman. The material we've listed here is just a
starting point. There are many other worthwhile books on the subject.

2. Spread the Word--Libraries and Other Public Reading Areas --

        ``ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE GENERALLY, AND TYRANNY AND OPPRESSIONS
OF BODY AND MIND WILL VANISH LIKE EVIL SPIRITS AT THE DAWN OF DAY.''
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Du Pont de Nemours, April 24, 1816.

        As you've begun to educate yourself, you can begin to educate
other folks. One of the easiest ways is to get pro-rights books into
your local library.

        One good approach for a lone activist or a small group is to
``adopt a library'' and focus energy on getting pro-rights materials
into that one venue. The library doesn't have to be the biggest branch
in the area. In fact, the smaller libraries may be more grateful for
your help.

        The books you help supply may be the only pro-gun books in
that library. When students and other persons go to the library to
research the gun issue, they'll find the carefully reasoned material
that you laid out for them. One book placed in one library may, over
time, enlighten dozens of students (and future voters) about the
realities of the right to bear arms.

        At the simplest level, you can simply buy pro-rights books,
and give them to the library. Librarians strongly prefer hardback
books, since they stand up so much better under heavy use. Before
putting down the money to buy the books for a donation, check with the
librarian to make sure that the library would be interested in the
book. Libraries may accept some of the books, and reject others.
School libraries will probably want to review all of the offered
books, to make sure that they are suitable for the relevant age group.

        Of the books discussed in the previous chapter, the ones most
likely to be accepted by libraries would be the hard cover editions
of: The Rights of Gun Owners; The Gun Control Debate; Pointblank;
Under the Gun; Armed and Dangerous; That Every Man Be Armed; Origins
of the Second Amendment; Origins and Development of the Second
Amendment; The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy; Gun Control and
the Constitution; and Armed and Female.

        Donations can also be done on a larger scale. The People's
Rights Organization, of Columbus, Ohio, working with the national
Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, bought 25
copies each of three pro-gun books and donated them to the Columbus
Library. The books were Paxton Quigley's Armed and Female, Alan
Gottlieb's The Gun Grabbers, and William Tonso's The Gun Culture and
Its Enemies. The library, which has numerous branches, gratefully
accepted the books.

        Another hard-working group, the Keystone Second Amendment
Association put 130 books in 17 high school, public, and college
libraries in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania.

        Second Amendment Foundation will be delighted to work with you
in library donation projects. SAF can provide you the books at cost
(about 1/3 to 1/2 of the retail price). They may be able to supply
some books for free.

        Libraries are also happy to have magazine subscriptions
donated to them. The NRA magazine American Rifleman is a good choice.
InSights, the NRA magazine for junior shooters, is a fine selection
for school libraries. Because InSights is sent to so many schools, it
has no political content. Some smaller libraries will accept your own
copy of a magazine, once you're done with it. You can just cross out
your name on the subscription label.

        Some libraries, particularly small ones that cater to students
writing reports for school, keep folders on current events such as gun
control (which is a consistently popular student paper topic). The
folders may include pamphlets, newspaper clips, and other
miscellaneous materials. Ask the librarian if there is such a file,
and if you can donate materials for it. The Research Reports and
NRA/ILA brochures mentioned in chapter 1 would be good items to
include.

        Libraries usually have community bulletin boards, as do
organizations such as the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign
Wars. Keep an eye on the bulletin boards and, if the public is allowed
to post materials, stick up a flyer from your local pro-rights
organization.

        Some libraries set up table displays from time to time. If you
see that your library has one, consider offering to set one up about
gun control. Before speaking with the librarian, examine what other
kinds of displays the library has, and try to design something that
fits in with what the library is already used to. The librarian will
probably be more receptive if you can provide a balanced set of
materials, rather than information that just reflects the pro-rights
viewpoint.  Don't worry about letting the public see the other side;
the pro-rights argument, when examined in a logical and careful
manner, is so much more persuasive than the gun control side that
moving the public debate away from emotions and towards reason nearly
always makes converts for the Second Amendment.

        The above advice about advance preparation fits in for just
about everything mentioned in this book: Advance scouting is always a
good idea. Before you write a letter to the editor of the local paper,
read the letters to the editor column, and see what kind of letters
get printed. Before you visit a Congresswoman's office, study her
voting record.

        Not every place where people sit for hours and hours reading
old magazines is called a ``library.'' Some such places are called
``the doctor's waiting room.'' Waiting rooms are an excellent place to
leave pro-rights magazines such as the American Rifleman. Make sure to
cross out your name, so some well-intentioned soul doesn't mail it
back to you, thinking you left it in the waiting room by mistake.
Doctors, dentists, barbers, hairdressers, auto mechanics, and lots of
other professionals all have waiting rooms full of customers desperate
for something to read that's more interesting (and accurate) than a
six-month-old issue of Time.

3. Letters to the Editor

``TO THE PRESS ALONE, CHECQUERED AS IT IS WITH ABUSES, THE WORLD IS
INDEBTED FOR ALL THE TRIUMPHS WHICH HAVE BEEN GAINED BY REASON AND
HUMANITY OVER ERROR AND OPPRESSION.'' Thomas Jefferson, Virginia and
Kentucky Resolutions, 1799.

        One of the best things a gun rights defender can do is write
letters to the editor of his or her local newspaper.

        More people read letters to the editor than read the
editorials written by professional columnists. Letters to the editor
are a unique chance to influence thousands of people.

How to Do It

        One excuse people offer for not writing is ``I'm not a good
writer'' or ``I don't know enough to write.''  Well, you don't have to
be an outstanding scribe to get published in the local newspaper. If
you have even a minimal amount of common sense, you have what it takes
to write a good letter. After all, you understand the right to bear
arms better than do the people who write for Newsweek and the Los
Angeles Times. Much of what those ``professional'' writers do is
reprint propaganda from Handgun Control Inc. You can do better than
that.

        Free literature available from the NRA and the Second
Amendment Foundation will give you all the data you need for a good
short letter. (The free literature is discussed in chapter 1.)

        Your hometown newspaper may be biased against guns in its news
and editorial sections, but that doesn't exclude you from getting a
good letter printed. Many editorial pages welcome letters that
challenge the viewpoint in the rest of the newspaper.

        Here are some key words to remember when composing your
letter. If you keep these words in mind, you'll get published:

Short. 100 words or less. That's enough time to convey one or two
ideas. Long letters have a much smaller chance of being published.
Even if you're responding to a long diatribe against guns, stick to
one or two important points, rather than trying to rebut everything.

Type the letter. This isn't mandatory, but it does help. Otherwise,
write long-hand. In either case, double space.

Clear. Express a forceful opinion on one side of the issue. Don't
waffle. This one should be easy.

Prejudiced. Don't be. Never say anything that is racist, sexist,
homophobic, or displays any other prejudice. Prejudice instantly kills
a letter, and brings all gun owners into disrepute.

Focus. Emphasize our positive side. Tell the people the facts which
support our case. Avoid personal attacks on opponents.

Tact. Honey catches more flies than vinegar. For example, if a news
story misstates the facts about guns, you letter doesn't have to start
out: ``Your rotten paper has once again proven that it is a biased
mouthpiece for bleeding-heart liberal Commies.'' Instead, the letter
can gently offer to ``clarify'' a point that wasn't fully discussed in
the news article. The softer you talk, the better people can hear you.

One at a time. If you're lucky enough to live in a town with two
competing daily newspapers (there are only 16 such cities left), only
write to one paper at a time. Add a p.s. note to your letter saying
that you are sending the letter to only this paper. Papers prefer that
their material be exclusive. Wait ten days, and if you don't hear from
the first paper, send the letter to the other paper.

Wait. Here's one situation where a waiting period actually does some
good. If you've been published in a paper recently, wait 30 days
before sending another letter to the same paper. The Letters to the
Editor section is a community forum; papers don't want any one person
to appear too often.

Address and phone number should be included at the top of the page.
Papers often call to confirm a letter before printing.

Peg. Hang your letter on a news peg. This is very important. If you
write a letter in response to a recent news story or editorial, the
paper will be more likely to print it. There's nothing the media loves
so much as printing stories about the media. Even criticism of the
media gets lots of print space, since (from the viewpoint of the
media, four-year-olds, and similar types) negative attention is way
better than no attention at all.

Sign the letter. Never send an anonymous letter. Nor should you sign
your letter ``Ed Barnhill, NRA Member.'' The fact that you're an NRA
member won't make the letter more persuasive to people who didn't
agree with you already. If you want to add something to the signature
block, add something that will show the readers that you're a
responsible member of the community, e.g. ``retired teacher, farmer,
homemaker, doctor, etc.'' (Don't sign the letter ``Ed Barnhill,
etc.,'' unless your name is actually ``Ed Barnhill, etc..'' )

        Finally, write the letter so that a person who didn't read the
original article can still follow your argument. For example, a letter
might read:

        A recent editorial (``Stop the Slaughter,'' April 22) claimed
that ``Drug dealers can walk into a store and walk out five minutes
later with a machine gun, no questions asked.'' Actually, no-one can
buy a machine gun in five minutes.

        Five months is more like it. Machine guns have been strictly
regulated by federal law since 1934. To buy any fully automatic
firearm, a person needs to get a federal license which requires
fingerprints and a background check, and takes many months of
paperwork.

        Before we enact even more gun controls, people should
understand how many we already have.

        If you follow these ten rules, about 1 in 5 of your letters
will get published. That's a success rate to be proud of, and you'll
be making an important contribution to the debate.

        Your chances of being published, by the way, are better in
smaller newspapers, since there's less competition from other writers.
The odds you will get published in the New York Times are better than
the odds that you will get struck by lightening--but not a lot better.
Your prospects in the Staten Island Advance are much better, and your
odds in a smaller paper are better still. And remember, it's the
readers of the smaller papers who, since they're more likely to live
in smaller cities, may be more receptive to the pro-rights message.

Advanced Techniques

        While the above rules are mandatory (if you want to get
published), below are some suggestions that, although not essential,
will be helpful.

        Newspapers are written by generalists, who understandably
cannot familiarize themselves with every issue. Thus, reporters and
editors look for material from people who are well-known experts on a
particular subject. In the letter-to-the-editor context, your letter
will be more persuasive to the editor (and likely to get printed) if
you can cite authoritative sources.

        For example, the sentence ``gun control never works'' is
merely an assertion. More persuasive is the sentence ``According to
the Wright-Rossi study for the National Institute of Justice, there is
no evidence that any current gun controls have worked.''

        Likewise, instead of saying ``The authors of the Constitution
supported an individual right to bear arms,'' supply a one-sentence
quote from James Madison or Thomas Jefferson discussing the individual
right.

        Alternatively, when you offer a statistic, put the source of
the statistic in parenthesis: ``While Mr. Meddlethorpe claims that
`the record murder rate proves the need for gun control,' the
murder rate today is lower than it was in 1981. (FBI Uniform Crime
Reports.)''  Don't worry if citing authority makes the letter a little
too long; the editors can always cut it if they want.

        And it's all right to bring in personal experience. Newspapers
always like printing ``eyewitness'' accounts; so if one of the reasons
that you think semiautomatics should remain legal is that you
frightened off a burglar with one, tell your story.

        Newspapers love to find inconsistencies--two government
agencies undercutting each other's work, or a Senator's actions
contradicting his words. So if you can find an inconsistency and point
it out, go right ahead.

        As with every other thing you write, the first sentence is the
most important, so write it carefully.

        Make a copy for yourself to keep (but if you don't have ready
access to a copy machine, just mail the letter, rather than letting it
sit in your jacket pocket for ten days until you find a photocopier).

        Mail the letter the day after you write it. Letting it cool
gives you time to retract any intemperate remarks, and gives you an
extra day to think about the letter, and perhaps find some
refinements. As Thomas Paine observed, the best writing comes from
warm passions and a cool temper.

Does it Matter?

        Even letters that don't get published make a positive impact.
The young newspaper staffer who is in charge of editing the letters to
the editor page will one day be running her own editorial page at some
newspaper. Your letter may be one of the few pro-gun arguments she is
exposed to all year.

        Most media types don't hate guns out of genuine conviction.
It's simply a cultural prejudice of their environment. Some people, if
exposed to the facts, will gradually reconsider their viewpoint.

        Like everything else in the paper, published letters to the
editor are also read by the rest of the newspaper's staff, including
reporters and editors. Letters about a particular subject may convince
the reporters and editors that the gun issue is important to the
readership, and deserves thorough, frequent coverage.

        Will a published letter really matter? You bet. A 1989 issue
of the Yale Law Journal contained an article by Sanford Levinson
called ''The Embarrassing Second Amendment.'' Levinson, one of the top
Constitutional law professors in the US, wrote that liberal academics
(himself included) should face up to the overwhelming evidence: The
Second Amendment really does guarantee an individual right to bear
arms.

        Levinson's article dealt a tremendous blow to the silly theory
that the Second Amendment is only a guarantee that states can have a
National Guard. (The theory never caught on with ordinary people, but
had been popular in the academic community.) Professor Levinson's
piece cites a number of letters to the editor of ordinary newspapers.
In fact, it was Levinson's reading of letters in his local newspaper
that made him realize that huge numbers of people really care about
the Second Amendment--even though most law professors don't. Levinson
began to consider that maybe the letter writers were right, and the
law professors were wrong.

        Professor Levinson isn't the only person influenced by letters
to the editor. Except for the front page, the letters section is more
widely read than any other part of the newspaper--even the editorial
page.

        Congressional staffers follow letters to the editor in the
Congressperson's home-town newspapers as an important gauge of public
opinion back home.

        Although Congressional staffers will likely have read your
published letter, send them a copy anyway. If your letter praised the
Congressperson, send her a copy, even if it wasn't printed. She'll
appreciate the fact that gun owners are standing by her, and will
therefore be more likely to stand by them.

Op-ed Pieces

        Once you've established a good track record as a letter
writer, consider trying to write opinion pieces for your local paper.

        The general rules discussed above for letters apply for most
op-eds too. Total length should be 650-750 words. Going even slightly
above the limit seriously impairs your chance of getting published.

        Before submitting a piece, call your newspaper's opinion page,
and ask for their guidelines regarding op-ed submissions.

        If you're a university or high school student, your situation
is somewhat easier, since most school newspapers are eager to publish
student writers.

4. Talk Radio

``THE TANK, THE B-52, THE FIGHTER-BOMBER, THE STATE CONTROLLED POLICE
ARE THE WEAPONS OF DICTATORSHIP. THE RIFLE IS THE WEAPON OF
DEMOCRACY...IF GUNS ARE OUTLAWED, ONLY THE GOVERNMENT WILL HAVE GUNS.
ONLY THE POLICE, THE SECRET POLICE, THE MILITARY, THE HIRED SERVANTS
OF OUR RULERS. ONLY THE GOVERNMENT AND A FEW OUTLAWS. I INTEND TO BE
AMONG THE OUTLAWS.'' Edward Abbey.

        The suggestions below are written for callers, but are equally
applicable to guests.

        Listen to the show for a while, so you can get a sense of the
show's style and direction.

        Many of the points made about letters to newspapers (chapter
3) or letters to Congress (chapter 15) apply here too. Don't get mad,
don't scream, don't use obscenities. Negative behavior simply turns
off the listening audience, and convinces people that gun owners
really are mentally dangerous.

        You'll be nervous the first few times you call, but with
practice, you'll get more confident and relaxed.

        Convincing the host is not the objective; he's already made
his mind up. Your goal is to get a little bit of air time to present
some facts to the radio audience.

        Make specific factual points, not just vague generalizations.
Alan's Gun Rights Fact Book (see page 4) includes a section of
suggested talking points for radio call-ins.

        Try to make your points in about 30 seconds or less. Don't
read long quotations (like the one at the start of this chapter).

        Remember that the host (or the studio guest) will always have
the last word. Don't let this discourage you. Even if the host or
guest argues with some of the points you've made, you will still have
helped bring some people in the radio audience over to our side.

        Similarly, the host may interrupt you. Don't get insulted.
It's his show, and he has to keep things moving with the timing he
feels best.

        The host may try to agitate you, to provoke you into an angry
response. Fireworks build the host's rating, but they don't do our
cause any good. So no matter what, stay cool under pressure.

        Listen to the callers who come ahead of you. Maybe you'll have
something to say to support a comment by a pro-gun caller, or to
refute a comment from an anti.

        Never engage in name-calling with the host or another caller,
even if they start it. Instead of calling someone a ``liar,'' explain
how they're mistaken.

        Some shows are limited to a specific subject, usually related
to the show's guest. On a specific subject show, you of course have to
confine your comments to that day's subject matter.

        In contrast, other shows are ``open forum.'' The host solicits
call-ins to discuss anything they want. You can often get a lively
discussion going about gun control.

        If you bring up the gun issue and the host of an open forum
show doesn't want to talk about it, don't take it personally. The gun
debate gets a lot of exposure on talk radio, and some hosts may think
that they need to force a broader variety of topics.

        And most importantly: Be nice. A large fraction of the
listeners will be paying more attention to your overall tone than to
your specific points.

        If you don't know the answer to a question, say so, and move
on to another topic.

        One tactic used by our opponents is for one of them to call a
radio station and pretend to be an irate NRA member who favors gun
control. To weed out the callers who claim to be NRA members but
aren't, bring a copy of the most recent American Rifleman or American
Hunter to the studio with you, and have a question ready about it.
(E.g. ``If you're really an NRA member, can you name just one feature
article in the latest issue of the magazine?''). If the host is
pro-rights, you might want to inform him in advance about the fake NRA
caller problem.

Citizens Band Radio

        Who says that broadcast radio is the only way to get the
message out? CB-er Charles Howell broadcasts short pro-gun messages on
his radio, informing them about the latest in gun control news.

        The CB audience is especially important, he notes, because it
includes so many truckers. Lots of truckers own guns, but because
they're on the road for weeks at a time, they may be cut off from
regular news sources.

        Truckers enjoy the unenviable status of being one of the many
groups of American even more harassed by excessive government than are
gun-owners. So truckers understand the importance of limited
government.

5. Read Gun Week

``EVERY GOOD AND EXCELLENT THING STANDS MOMENT BY MOMENT ON THE RAZOR
EDGE OF DANGER AND MUST BE FOUGHT FOR.'' Thornton Wilder.

        Lack of information can be dangerous to you and your gun
rights.  The general media do not do an adequate job of giving an
objective description of gun-related events and statistics. Whether
it's the federal scene, or states and cities, there is no other way to
get the crucial information as fast as subscribing to a publication
dedicated to firearms information.

        If you didn't hear about a gun control proposal in Congress
until your local paper reported the outcome of a Congressional vote,
then you haven't been reading Gun Week. Gun Week keeps you posted on
what the gun control lobby is doing before it is too late for you to
do something. Regular reports from Washington DC keeps you up to date
on federal issues, but Gun Week also reports on what is happening at
state capitals around the country. Every week Gun Week tells you what
you need to know to protect your gun rights.

        Regular hunting reports are also a valuable part of your Gun
Week subscription. Deer, elk, turkey, bear, waterfowl, upland birds,
small game--Gun Week covers all the seasons. Most importantly, Gun
Week covers the seasons on a regional and local level. When deer
season in Pennsylvania looks terrific, elk hunting in Colorado looks
so-so, or Michigan has just issued new hunting regulations, you'll
read about it in Gun Week.

        Gun Week's new product reviews evaluate new outdoor products
before you shell out your hard-earned money. Every week you can read
reports about new clothing, handguns, rifles, sights, knives, powders,
ammunition and anything that can make you a better hunter or shooter.
Gun Week is also the first and best place to look for important
product recalls that increase your safety.

        Gun Week has been leading the media pack on industry news as
well.  Do you know about the metallurgical problems with the M-9
pistol, or the FBI's struggles to adopt a new semi-automatic, or the
troubles at Glock? If none of this sounds familiar then you haven't
been reading Gun Week.

        A year's subscription costs $32.00, just $.64 per issue, which
is probably less than the cup of coffee you get at the local diner.
And there is no risk of disappointment; if you are not 100% satisfied
you will be promptly refunded for unmailed issues--no questions asked,
no hard feelings. You simply can't go wrong. In fact, you will
probably wonder how you ever got along without it.

        You can subscribe by calling the Second Amendment Foundation
at 1-206-454-7012.

        A few years ago, one of Rep. Charles Schumer's Brooklyn
constituents bought him a gift subscription to Gun Week. Schumer was
so upset that he wrote back, and asked to have the subscription
canceled.

        Most Congresspeople, however, are not as frightened of open
debate as Rep. Schumer is. A trial subscription sent to your Senator,
or State Representative, or City Councilwoman probably won't turn them
into NRA Life Members. But it may show some of them a new perspective.

        And just maybe, some college intern in the office will read
Gun Week with an open mind, and come to some new conclusions about the
right to bear arms.

6. The Big Lie, or Don't Believe Everything You Read

``NO MATTER HOW THIN YOU SLICE IT, IT'S STILL BALONEY.'' New York
Governor Alfred E. Smith, speech, 1936.

        Handgun Control, Inc. knows how effective pro-rights
grassroots lobbyists are. That's why HCI has invented a special
campaign, ``Operation Alienate,'' designed to drive gun owners away
from the NRA and other pro-rights organizations. What HCI hopes is
that if you read enough negative information about the right to bear
arms and its supporters, you'll stop working to defend your rights.

        In fact, much of the anti-gun ``information'' you read in the
press is really disinformation--falsehoods invented by the anti-gun
lobbies, and thoughtlessly repeated by the media.

        The problem of media disinformation is not limited to the gun
issue. During the Persian Gulf War, University of Massachusetts
sociologists Sut Jhally, Justin Lewis, and Michael Morgan tested
people for their knowledge of important facts about the conflict (e.g.
knowledge that Kuwait was not a democracy). The authors found that the
more television people watched, the less they knew. That is, after
controlling for other variables, the study discovered that people who
watched a lot of television coverage of the war knew less about the
war than people who watched only a little television.

        In the gun issue, who's telling the truth. The NRA and Handgun
Control, Inc. both accuse each other of being fundamentally dedicated
to dishonesty. At least one of the two organizations must be lying
quite a bit. Here's what Library Journal said in its Sept. 15, 1988
``Alarums and Diversions'' column: ``A highly placed library source in
Washington, D.C. told A&D that the American Library Association lobby
and the National Rifle Association lobby are the only ones whose
information was considered consistently truthful and reliable by
legislators.''

        So before you let some hysterical article in the national
media drive you out of the guns rights movement, take the latest
anti-gun screed with a big grain of salt.

7. Computer Bulletin Boards

``NECESSITY IS THE PLEA OF EVERY INFRINGEMENT OF HUMAN FREEDOM. IT IS
THE ARGUMENT OF TYRANTS; IT IS THE CREED OF SLAVES.'' William Pitt,
English statesman and friend of American independence, Speech on the
India Bill, Nov. 18, 1783.

        If your personal computer has a modem (short for
``modulator/demodulator''), the computer can communicate over phone
lines with other computers.

        If you don't have a modem, you can buy either an internal
modem (a circuit board that goes into one of your computer's expansion
slots) or an external modem (which is attached to one of the serial
ports at the back of your computer). In either case, the modem has two
phone jacks in it, one of which runs to your telephone, the other of
which runs to the wall jack (where the telephone line from outside
enters the room).

        Modems require communications software to run them; almost
every modem vendor will supply you with software too.

        The faster a modem, the more it costs. However, speedy modems
will usually pay for themselves in the long run by saving you long
distance charges (since they transmit data faster). Try to get a modem
rated at least at 2400 bps, with 9600 being preferable (and
increasingly affordable).

        Anyway, once you've got a working modem, you can--using the
communications software--instruct the modem to connect over the
telephone lines with another computer that is ready to receive phone
calls. You can then communicate with any other computer that also has
a modem. For instance, you can dial your cousin Egbert's computer
(assuming that he has a modem, and has his communications software on
and ready to receive calls), and send him your file containing
chocolate chip cookie recipes. Or better (from a gun rights point of
view), you can dial a gun rights bulletin board.

        A bulletin board is a computer that is dedicated to making
itself available for communication with other computers. A bulletin
board contains files, electronic mail, and other material of use to
the people who dial in to the bulletin board. There are literally tens
of thousands of bulletin boards in the United States, covering a huge
diversity of topics. Below is a list of bulletin boards focusing on
the right to bear arms.

        All bulletin boards listed under state headings belong to the
``Paul Revere Network'' run by Leroy Pyle, and all Paul Revere boards
echo each other; this means that if a file becomes available on one
Paul Revere board, it will shortly become available on all Paul Revere
boards.

        Pro-rights bulletin boards transmit information
instantaneously.  They are unquestionably the fastest way to get
in-depth information about gun rights issues around the nation.

        The boards also have ``conferences,'' which are discussion
areas for particular topics, such as reloading. Conference
participants can write messages to each other, and leave the messages
for viewing in the conference area. Thus, they can have a discussion
stretching over weeks and months, without having to be sending their
messages at the same time.

        The bulletin board listing below is arranged by state. For all
of these boards, your modem settings should be N-8-1.

Arizona

Brass Cannon. (602) 639-1039.

Run-Time. (602) 779-3115. PRN

Arkansas

Conway PC Users Group. (501) 329-7227.

California

The Silhouetter. (209) 472-0843.

PRN Los Angeles. (310) 837-7818.

Telecommuter WorkSystems. (310) 676-0492.

Paul Revere Network Headquarters. (408) 947-9800.

PRNet/SF Eastbay. (510) 791-8246.

The City of Tanelorn. (510) 803-0319.

Rights of the People. (619) 961-1708.

A&B Express. (619) 447-0641.

Eagle's Nest. (818) 769-6584.

Bullet Box. (818) 403-0399.

NRA/ILA Sacramento. (916) 446-3221.

Highsierra Online. (916) 577-4438.

Florida

RedMan. (305) 435-1972.

Minnesota

Minnesota MinuteMan. (612) 493-3558.

Missouri

Party Line. (314) 845-7937.

PRN Central. (816) 597-3950.

The Institute. (816) 421-3944.

The Money Pit. (913) 287-1102.

New Hampshire

The Quiet Revolution. (603) 753-9716.

VAXCAT. (603) 424-023.

New York

Airpower Rybbs. (215)- 259-2198.

ImageSoft. (516) 767-5189.

Midnite Caller. (716) 297-0291.

Knights of Discovery. (716) 837-2901.

The Outback. (914) 339-1816.

Paul Revere Network. (914) 339-1816.

The Network. (914) 635-9501.

The Rifle Range. (914) 452-4753.

PRN/DIS. (914) 635-2712.

Ghandeel's Fortress. (914) 647-7280.

The Final Encyclopedia. (914) 737-2539.

Ohio

PRN Cincinnati. (513) 474-9193.

Liberty Line. (513) 891-2430.

The Christian Star. (614) 841-9991.

Oklahoma

Gunners Mate. (918) 665-6841.

Bedrock. (918) 985-6836.

Oregon

The Post House. (503) 667-2649.

Pennsylvania

2nd Amendment. (814) 898-1732.

South Carolina

Schroedinger's Catbox. (803) 652-3759.

Tennessee

Southern Cross. (615) 349-5473.

Reality Relief Fido. (615) 690-2227.

Reality's Link. (615) 246-5595.

Texas

The Firing Line. (214) 341-5582.

BackStage. (409) 721-9606. PRN

Flotom Ent. (512) 282-3941.

Jack's Range. (915) 757-9311. PRN

Virginia

Bullet 'n Board. (703) 971-4491. PRN

PRN/LGC. (804) 877-8320.

Washington

Troubador Systems. (206) 661-2135.

National

        Of all the pro-rights boards, the best one is Gun Talk, run by
NRA/ILA. The number is 1-703-719-6406.

        To register as a user, you need to supply your NRA membership
number, and pay a $15 annual fee (to defray part of the enormous
hardware costs associated with operating a BBS with numerous incoming
phone lines capable of operating simultaneously). You can register
on-line, or by calling 1-800-GUN-TALK.

        Once you're registered, you have full access to the Gun Talk
BBS, with no further fees (except of course long-distance charges from
wherever you're calling).

        The opening menu of Gun Talk offers you the option of reading
any of about two dozen bulletins dealing with up-to-minute accounts of
key political battles, recent news involving gun issues, and
fast-breaking legislative developments.

        A Files Section contains several hundred text files dealing
with every angle of the right to bear arms issue. Historical articles
about the original meaning of the Second Amendment; detailed analysis
of topical issues such as waiting periods; reprints of articles from
American Rifleman, American Hunter, and the popular media; ballistics
tables; and much, much more are all available in the Files Section.

        The Files Section can be a tremendous resource when you need
hard facts to put in a letter to the editor or to an elected official.

        Finally, Gun Talk allows you to send messages to other Gun
Talk users. While you can send private messages to an individual,
almost all messages are intended for public consumption, and are
posted in a Message Section for all to read. The contents of the
Messages Section are as diverse as the users, and include debates
about the recent Presidential race, questions about reloading
technique and gun repair, updates on forthcoming gun shows, and
first-hand reports about what it's really like to try to get a pistol
license in New York.

        Another national BBS paying attention to gun rights issue is
the Outdoor Forum, on Compuserve. The Forum is shared by a number of
hunting and outdoor groups.

Canada

        Canadian bulletin boards dealing in part with firearms or the
right to bear arms:

CARS--The Automotive BBS (Alberta). (403) 752-3930.

K9COPS BBS (British Columbia). (604) 599-0514.

Yorkton Area Opus (Saskatchewan). (306) 782-1355.

8. Telephone Hotlines

``NOBODY MAKES A GREATER MISTAKE THAN HE WHO DOES NOTHING BECAUSE HE
COULD ONLY DO A LITTLE.'' Edmund Burke

        Recorded telephone hotlines are one of the best sources for
up-to-date information about gun control battles. You can call
evenings or weekends, if you want to reduce long-distance charges.
Besides the normal phone charge, there is no fee for calling any of
these numbers, except as noted below.

National

Neal Knox's Firearms Coalition runs a high-quality automated phone
message center. The messages are usually updated once or twice a week.
301-871-3006.

International

Sporting Shooters Association of Australia. Dial Australia, then 0055
23308. This number is similar to a 900 number; besides long-distance
charges, you also pay a premium to the phone company of up to 70 cents
per minute. The SSAA earns revenue from the service.

California

California Rifle & Pistol Association. (800)-I'M 4 GUNS
(800-464-4867). This 800 number is only usable from within California.

Gun Owners ACTION Committee. 714-871-4515.

Colorado

Firearms Coalition. 303-369-GUNS.

Connecticut

Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen. 203-722-3030.

Massachusetts

Sportsmen's Legislative Hotline. (800) 338-6999. (Only from within
Mass.)

Missouri

Western Missouri Shooters' Alliance. (816) 444-0228.

Texas

Texas State Rifle Association. (512) 288-3242.

North Texas Arms Rights Coalition (214) 270-4068.

9. Attend a Leadership Training Seminar

``PARUM PROFICET SCIRE FIERI DEBEL, SI NON COGNOSCUS QUOMODO SIT
FACTURUM.'' (Roman legal maxim: ``It profits little to know what ought
to be done, if you do not know how it is to be done.'')

        If you want to be a part of the gun rights movement, then
eventually you must meet with other members and leaders of the
movement. Fortunately, with the gun rights movement this is easy to
do.

Gun Rights Policy Conference

        Each year, the major players in the gun rights movement gather
at an event called the Gun Rights Policy Conference. Together with
activists from across the nation, as well as local participants, each
year's activities are reviewed, and strategies shared. The Gun Rights
Policy Conference provides you with an inside scope view of how the
gun rights movement operates, and lets you become a part of that
process.

        Since 1986 the annual meeting, which is free to the public,
has been sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation, the Citizens
Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and Gun Week newspaper.
In addition, over 40 other organizations and industry leaders provide
funding or other types of support to the conference. The GRPC has
gained the attention of the national media for its ability to draw
together all of the heavy hitters in the pro-gun movement.

        The GRPC is the largest meeting of its kind in America.
Registration for the event has risen steadily each year as more people
experience the benefits of attending the conference. As a result,
opportunities abound for interested individuals to talk face-to-face
with the people who are on the front lines and in the headlines.

        The schedule for the GRPC is spread out over two nights and
three days. Participants are free to select which events to attend as
receptions, speeches, panel discussions and other meetings give
everyone the opportunity to participate fully.

        Make your plans to attend the next Gun Rights Policy
Conference by contacting the Second Amendment Foundation, 12500 NE
10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005. 1-206-454 7012.

Attend a Leadership Training Conference

        If you cannot attend the Gun Rights Policy Conference the next
best thing to do is attend a Leadership Training Conference held by
the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. These
meetings are much smaller both in size and scope than the GRPC, but
the lessons learned are no less valuable.

        Leadership Training Conferences are one day events where the
focus is on intensive training in the art of grass roots lobbying. The
speakers and materials aim to assist motivated individuals in becoming
effective voices in the gun rights movement. Topics include means to
affect the outcome of legislative deliberations, organizing a local
gun rights organization, successful fund raising, organizing a
communications network and other aspects of the daily fight to save
our firearms rights from extinction.

        Make your plans to attend the next Leadership Training
Conference in your area by contacting the Projects Director at the
Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms 12500 NE 10th
Place, Bellevue, WA 98005. 1-206-454-4911.

10. Speeches and Debates

``GUARD WITH JEALOUS ATTENTION THE PUBLIC LIBERTY. SUSPECT EVERYONE
WHO APPROACHES THAT JEWEL.'' Patrick Henry.

Style

        Begin to establish a bond with the audience by relating an
experience of your own which the audience is likely to have shared.

        Wear a suit and tie (just a suit, if you're female). Surveys
of college students show that they have more intellectual respect for
professors who dress professionally, rather than the ones who dress
casually.

        Instead of writing the speech word for word, jot down key
words and topics that you can glance at as you go along. It's much
more fun to hear somebody who's speaking instead of somebody who's
reading aloud. Keep your sentences short, remembering that things
presented orally must be simpler than things delivered in writing.
Make sure that your speech has a beginning, a middle, and a
conclusion. Maintain eye contact with the audience as much as
possible. Instead of looking over the audience's heads, focus on one
particular person, and speak directly to her. Of course make sure to
keep changing the person you focus on. Practice, practice, practice
your speech before you deliver it to the audience.

        One obvious audience for speeches is gun clubs or hunting
clubs.  But don't overlook other potential audiences. For example,
groups such as Rotary Clubs have weekly luncheon meetings, always with
a new speaker. Same for the Kiwanis, for women's clubs, and for the
League of Women Voters. Many would be glad to have someone address
their group about a topic in the news.

        And bring along some written materials to hand out to
interested people afterwards. Membership flyers from your local gun
rights group are a good choice, as is any of the educational material
discussed above chapter 1.

Substance

        Choose one topic for a short speech. It's much easier to write a
good, powerful speech on a single subject, than to try to cover the
whole field. A single topic might be ``The Truth about So-called
Assault Weapons'' or ``What the Second Amendment Means'' or ``Why
Concealed Carry Permit Laws Are a Good Idea'' or ``Why Waiting Periods
Don't Work'' or ``Because the Police have no Legal Obligation to Protect
Individuals, People Need the Ability to Protect Themselves.''

        In addition, gear the topic to the audience. If you're
speaking for a gun club, the audience might appreciate a fairly
``advanced'' topic, such as how waiting periods set the stage for gun
prohibition.  In contrast, an audience of Rotarians might want an
elementary introduction to the Second Amendment, or a discussion of
the importance of self-defense and responsible gun ownership in
today's high-crime society.

        As with virtually every other type of persuasive
communication, concrete examples work well. If you're talking about
waiting periods, discuss the people who couldn't get a gun to defend
their families during the Los Angeles riots because of California's
15-day waiting period.

Debates

        Most the same rules applicable to speeches apply to debates as
well. One major difference is that you'll have much less time to
develop your points.

        In debates (and in general), try to stay focused on the
pro-rights positive agenda, instead of attempting to rebut
point-by-point every argument made by your opponent. If your debate
opponents says something like ``The gun nuts want semi-automated
plastic machine guns firing cop-killer teflon bullets to be sold to
children without a waiting period,'' it would take you 15 minutes to
rebut each of the charges contained in the single sentence.

        Instead, keep the debate on our positive issues, with which
the vast majority of people agree with us: using force to defend home
and family is morally legitimate; because the police cannot protect
everyone, people should have the option to protect themselves;
criminals are afraid of and deterred by armed citizens; gun controls
affect only criminals, and distract politicians from genuine solutions
to crime.

        Except in front of an audience of lawyers or similar group,
don't spend a lot of time on Constitutional issues. You can make the
point that your own state Constitution (in most states) as well as the
federal Constitution guarantee a right to bear arms, and the US
Supreme Court re-affirmed the individual right in the 1990
Verdugo-Urquidez case. But in general, non-lawyer audiences are more
likely to be persuaded by practical arguments than by legal ones.

11. Look Good on TV

        ``THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH JAILS, NOT ENOUGH POLICEMEN, NOT ENOUGH
COURTS TO ENFORCE A LAW NOT SUPPORTED BY THE PEOPLE.'' Vice-President
Hubert H. Humphrey, speech, Williamsburg, Virginia, May 1, 1965.

        When gun control stories are happening, television stations
often come to local gun stores for interviews and pictures. Sometimes
the media uses the gun store footage for anti-gun purposes.

        A typical anti-gun segment might show a police chief calling
for ``strict gun control'' and offering some phony statistic. Then the
announcer would say, ``But not everyone agrees.'' The picture then
shifts to a gun store owner with a two-day old beard and a ratty
shirt, claiming that ``Gun control is just a conspiracy of the damn
liberals.''

        Viewers who are making up their minds about the issue will
find the neat and clean police chief much more convincing than the
slovenly store owner.

        So if you get a request for an interview, accept only if can
make sure that you and your surroundings (such as your body and/or gun
store) are neat and tidy before the cameras roll. And only if you feel
confident that you know enough about the particular issue to speak
persuasively. It's no disgrace modestly to step aside, and suggest
someone else who you know to be a good talker. It is a disgrace to put
your ego ahead of the pro-rights cause, and do a bad job when someone
else could have done a good job.

Preparing your Substance

        Before the television appearance, watch as many segments of
the program as you can. Write down about four key points you want to
convey. The purpose of writing isn't for you to read out loud later,
but to help you organize your thoughts. Think up concrete examples
that support your point.

        Even if the interviewer is sympathetic to your point of view,
he or she will try to ask you challenging questions. That's how
journalists conceive their job. So during your preparation work, think
of the hardest questions that someone could ask. And think of the
questions that someone might asked, based on the other side's main
arguments. Then think up responses to all those hard questions. Have a
friend play the role of interviewer, and ask you tough questions.

        One good way to handle hostile questions is to use them as a
transition to the positive points you want to make. That way, instead
of being on the defensive, you're communicating a positive agenda.

        For example, if the question is ``Why do you support the
availability of these assault weapons which drug dealers like so
much?'' the answer could be ``Actually those guns are hardly ever used
by criminals. Most of the folks who like semiautomatics are target
shooters, or people who want a reliable home-defense firearm.''

Preparing your Appearance

        As we keep suggesting throughout this book in regards to
public appearances, dress conservatively, preferably in a business
suit.  Never dress in hunting clothes, camouflage, or carry a gun.
Even if the station asks you to. The station's interest in
sensationalism is outweighed by your interest in looking dignified.

        For television, there are also a couple other clothing
suggestions. The ideal men's shirt is a light blue one, and the ideal
tie is a conservative one. If you're a male with long hair or beard,
follow your mother's advice (just this once), and get it neatly
trimmed.

        If your ego is too big to let a barber tidy up your beard a
little, then you're putting your personal satisfaction ahead of
everyone else's freedom.

        During the 1968 New Hampshire Democratic Presidential primary,
Senator Eugene McCarthy was helped tremendously by the thousands of
young people who came to New Hampshire to support his insurgent
campaign against President Lyndon Johnson. The youthful volunteers
were mainly motivated by McCarthy's strong stand against the Vietnam
War, and the volunteers, similar to like-minded youth of the era,
sported thick beards and long hair. And the men were even more
far-out!

        Yet when these ``long-haired'' rebels headed off to
conservative New Hampshire to campaign door-to-door, they got
haircuts, following their motto ``Clean for Gene.'' Their objective
was to help Gene McCarthy beat Lyndon Johnson; and if it required a
haircut to avoid alienating New Hampshire voters, they got a haircut.

        And on primary day, little-known, underfinanced Senator Eugene
McCarthy garnered a stunning 42% of the New Hampshire vote. Within
weeks, President Johnson withdrew his bid for re-election. Going
``Clean for Gene'' had knocked out an incumbent President.

        So if a 1968 hippie was willing to get a crew cut, you can at
least ask the barber to trim your beard a little.

        Television stations generally won't offer to apply makeup, but
if you arrive early and ask for it, they might put some on for you.
Makeup is helpful, but not at all essential, particularly with modern
studio lighting, which is much less likely to make you sweat than its
predecessors from a couple decades ago.

        Women can continue to use whatever makeup they feel
comfortable with already, as long as it's not excessive. Use lipstick
and eye liner sparingly.

        If any of jewelry is larger than ``small,'' leave it at home.
Jangly jewelry will distract the viewers.

        Women's clothes should emphasize soft colors. Big prints, big
polka dots, bold stripes, and giant checked patterns are out. So are
pure black, pure white, and pure black and white. Ideally, your suit,
skirt, or dress should come below the knee. Pants are okay too, and
should also go below the knee.

        While dressing conservatively, still pick out clothes that
you're comfortable in and familiar with.

        Obviously there are a lot of television personalities who
don't follow the above clothing guidelines, and who look great on TV.
At the same time, there are a lot of television personalities who do
follow these guidelines, and also look great. The guidelines aren't
intended for Geraldo; they're intended to help someone who's not a
professional TV person look their best the first time out. After
you've done a dozen TV appearances, you'll have enough experience
under your belt to figure out if you can vary the appearance
guidelines a little.

        And remember, gun control is a ``hot button'' issue, and the
other side tries hard to whip up public hysteria. Our job in
communicating with the public is to present the calm, rational side of
things. If your appearance is conservative and dignified, it supports
your message instead of distracting from it.

        When the crew is done taping you, leave the interviewer a card
or piece of paper with your name and phone number, in case they need
to do any follow-up. When you get home, send thank-you notes to the
television station's contact person, and to the interviewer.

On the Air

        Keep your head steady. Don't bob it around, the way you do in
normal conversation.

        Maintain eye contact with the interviewer, not the camera.

        If you're in a chair, sit up straight (but don't be rigid).
Remember what your mother taught you about posture.

        If a mike is clipped on your shirt or tie (which is common in
many sitting interviews), don't play with it!

        SMILE! And then smile some more. A somber face on television
looks terrible. And on television, a small smile looks almost somber.
So let out your natural enthusiasm with a bright smile. (At the same
time, don't make it look forced or unnatural.)

        And just as your face can convey your enthusiasm, so can your
voice--not in an angry or frantic manner--but in a vibrant, positive
way.

        If you naturally talk with your hands and arms, keep on doing
so.  Television likes things that move.

        Be nice. No matter how discourteous the interviewer may be to
you, stay nice, and don't blow your cool. Remember, you're trying to
make a good impression on the folks in television land, who may notice
how you act much more than what you say. If you stay calm while the
interviewer works himself into a hissy fit, you'll score points for
the good guys.

        Being nice, by the way, doesn't mean you can't be assertive.
You just have to be nice while doing it.

        Before answering, pause for a couple or three seconds to
organize your answer. If you're being taped for later broadcast, the
station will edit out any pauses. If you're live on the air, you'll
still sound better with good answers than with hurried ones.

        If the interviewer or interviewers ask you several questions
simultaneously, don't get flustered. This isn't a doctoral
dissertation oral exam, and you don't have to answer every question.
Answer the one that gives you the best opportunity to present your
positive agenda.

        Keep your answers to each question to three sentences or less.
A good format is to give the main point, and then illustrate it with
one example.

        If you keep your answers short, the station will be more
likely to use the points that you wanted to make. If you give
rambling, lengthy answers, the station's editors might pick out the
weakest or silliest statement you made, ignoring the good points that
surrounded it.

        And despite all the preparatory warnings above, relax. You've
probably got a nice personality, a good mind, and a pretty smile. Just
let them shine through, and you'll be fine.

        Finally, when you gather your family around the television to
watch the fifteen minute interview that was taped, don't feel
disappointed when only five seconds of you shows up on the air.
Television stations routinely shoot far more material than they expect
to use. The theory is by shooting a lot, they build themselves a
margin of safety to ensure they'll have all the good material they
need.

12. Confronting the Media

        ``THE BRAVE MAN INATTENTIVE TO HIS DUTY, IS WORTH LITTLE MORE TO
HIS COUNTRY, THAN THE COWARD WHO DESERTS HER IN THE HOUR OF DANGER.''
General Andrew Jackson, speech to troops before the Battle of New
Orleans, January 8, 1815.

        In rare cases, the media may impose a black-out on the pro-gun
viewpoint. This doesn't mean the kind of coverage typical of the New
York Times, where the news articles are usually slanted against guns,
and the in-house editorials are always anti-gun, but pro-gun op-eds
pieces and letters-to-the-editor do appear from time to time. Instead,
we're talking about newspapers like the San Jose Mercury-News or the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which have from time to time shut the
pro-rights viewpoint out entirely.

        In cases of pervasive or systemic bias, ask for a meeting with
the relevant person at the newspaper or broadcast station (the news
editor, or the editorial page editor, or the person in charge of
letters to the editor). Bring two or three well-informed people to the
meeting, and bring extensive clips from the paper documenting the
problem. (Or for broadcast media, written notes of particular problems
with particular shows.) Also bring pro-gun articles and books to give
to the newspaper as background information. (If you can, avoid books
published by gun groups.)

        While the meeting will certainly not turn an anti-gun
newspaper into a pro-gun one, it might convince the paper to let some
opposing viewpoints trickle into print once in a while.

        If your efforts at reasonable dialogue hit a stone wall, hold
a rally in front of the media outlet, decrying its bias. Make sure to
invite all the other media outlets in town to attend. And make sure to
have detailed documentation of the picketed outlet's bias available.

PART II

INFLUENCING GOVERNMENT

        The battle in the arena of public opinion is a warm-up for the
battle in the halls of government. Here's how you can stop the passage
of laws restricting freedom, and promote reform of existing laws that
infringe our rights.

13. Register Voters, Not Guns

``SO THEY COMMITTED THEMSELVES TO THE WILL OF GOD AND RESOLVED TO
PROCEED.'' William Bradford, Plymouth Plantation (1647).

Does Registering to Vote Matter?

        Some people may tell you that voting by our side doesn't make
a difference. Nonsense. Just ask Moody Stallings. Virginia State
Senator Moody Stallings centered his re-election campaign with boasts
about his attacks on the NRA. In November 1991, Stallings was defeated
for re-election, thanks in large part to pro-rights volunteers who
flocked to Stallings' opponent, and got out the vote.

        Every single vote really does count. During the 1980s in
California, over 21 local elections were decided by a single vote.

        Even in Presidential elections, pro-gun voters can make a
difference. In 1980 and 1988, the pro-gun vote swung Pennsylvania (and
several other states) to Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

        Some folks complain about the paperwork and bother involved in
registration. The question to ask them is: ``Would you rather register
to vote, or register your guns?'' Either we vote and win elections, or
the other side wins, and national registration of all guns will become
a reality.

        When we don't win elections, we pay a heavy price.

        In 1990, Senator Howard Metzenbaum helped push a bill banning
semi-automatics through the Senate by pointing out that the NRA had
failed to defeat him in 1988, despite his being a fierce opponent of
gun rights.

        New York Governor Mario Cuomo expressed the sentiment that
shows why many politicians feel free to ignore the opinion of gun
owners. He called people who opposed his mandatory seat belt law ``NRA
hunters who drink beer, don't vote and lie to their wives about where
they were all weekend.'' Beer-drinking is your own business, and where
you were this weekend is between you and your spouse. As an American
citizen you have a duty to vote, and a duty to vote against
politicians who want to destroy our rights.

        (Cuomo, by the way, apologized for the slur on the NRA,
although he never recanted his anti-gun positions.)

Finding Information about Registration

        The starting point for every registration campaign is the
county election commission or similar office. The Commission will have
all the information you need about registration. Procedures vary a lot
from state to state. The Commission will also probably have plenty of
free ``how to register'' literature that you can take and distribute.

        In addition to county election commissions, the Secretary of
State's office (located in the capital city of each state) also has
voter registration information. At the state government level, the
Secretary of State (usually an elected official) is the person
responsible for supervising elections.

        Another source for registration information is the local
League of Women Voters. You could also contact the Election Services
Division, League of Women Voters Education Fund, 1730 M St. NW,
Washington, DC 20036, (202) 429-1965. The League is, unfortunately,
anti-gun, which will make it all the more satisfying to use its
resources to elect pro-rights candidates.

        Political parties are also an excellent place to go for
registration assistance.

Getting People Registered

        After you've gotten yourself registered, the next step is
registering as many pro-rights voters as you can.

        In many states, you can take voting registration sheets and
sign up new voters yourself. Once the forms are filled out, you mail
them to the county election commission. Be sure to read the
instructions carefully, and follow them exactly. One tiny error could
easily invalidate a whole sheet of new voters.

        In states that don't have registration by mail, you can still
distribute how-to-register information, and encourage individuals to
register. Lots of potential voters who are intimidated by the
bureaucracy will register once you put the how-to information in their
hands.

        Gun clubs are a good starting point for voter registration.
Just as every gun club member should belong to the NRA, every club
member should be registered to vote. No excuses.

        In states with registration by mail, all it takes is about 20
minutes at a regular club meeting to distribute, fill out, and collect
all necessary information for every single club member to register.
The following states allow mail registration: Alaska, California,
Delaware, Florida (under special circumstances), Hawaii, Iowa,
Kentucky, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska,
New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas,
Utah, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.

        In states which don't allow registration by mail, a gun club
meeting can be scheduled during which to march the whole club down to
the election commission, and register en masse.

        Gun shows and gun stores are other good places to distribute
registration material. Gun store owners might want to put a
registration leaflet in every customer's sack, and gun show operators
might want to give such a leaflet to everyone buying an admission
ticket.

        And when you're handing out the registration material, hand
out some other literature on the right to bear arms, and the threat it
faces. (Some good sources of free materials include the NRA/ILA
Research & Information office, the Second Amendment Foundation, and
the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. See
chapter 1 for more info.)

14. A Guide to the Legislative Process

``THE BEST ARGUMENT IS THAT WHICH SEEMS MERELY AN EXPLANATION.'' Dale
Carnegie

Organization of the Legislative Body

        All state legislatures, as well as the US Congress, are divided
into two houses. (Nebraska, with one house, is the lone exception.)
The lower house (with a larger number of members, representing smaller
districts) is usually called the House of Representatives, or
sometimes the Assembly. The upper house, containing fewer members who
each represent larger districts, is usually called the Senate.

        At the city or county level, these is usually only one legislative
body, generally called the City Council, or Board of County
Commissioners.

        The practice of dividing a legislative body into two houses is
called ``bicameralism.'' In order to become law, a bill must pass both
houses of the legislature. Bicameralism provides a check on hasty,
poorly-written, or emotional legislation. It's no surprise, therefore,
that the anti-gun movement is generally much more successful at the
city council level than at the state legislature level.

How a bill Moves through the Legislature

        Upon introduction by a legislator, the bill is assigned a number.
The number reflects the house of origin, and the order of
introduction. For example, if the bill is the 52d bill introduced in
the Senate during the year, the bill will be ``S. 52'' or ``S.B. 52.''
(The ``B.'' stands for ``Bill.'')

        Once the bill has been introduced and assigned a number, it should
be available from the ``bill room'' of the legislature.

        Make sure to notify your National Rifle Association state liaison
and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms about
any gun-related bills that are introduced as soon as you hear about
them. The national pro-rights organizations depend on local activists
to be their eyes and ears about gun issues in their area. The national
groups have only a limited ability to monitor state legislatures, and
almost no ability to monitor city and county government. They need you
to keep them up to date.

        State legislatures and city councils (but usually not boards of
county commissioners) have committees that specialize in particular
subjects. A bill dealing with firearms issues will usually be sent to
the Judiciary Committee, although there are sometimes other
committees, such as Public Safety, State Affairs, Military Affairs, or
Local Affairs that might hear the bill.

        The committee will schedule a public hearing, where interested
persons will have the opportunity to testify. (See chapter 24 for
hints on testimony.) The bill may be revised in committee. If the
committee votes to approve the bill, the bill is sent to the full
house for consideration.

        In rare cases, the bill may be sent to another committee. For
example, a bill which increases the penalty for unlicensed gun
possession might first be sent to the Judiciary Committee, and then
the Appropriations Committee. The latter committee would consider the
fiscal impact of the extra prison space required by the increased
penalty.

        The assigning of bills to particular committees is the
responsibility of the leaders of the majority party in the house.
Usually the leaders have great discretion. If they favor a bill, they
will send it to a committee that they expect will approve the bill;
and if the leadership doesn't like the bill, they will send the bill
to a committee  they expect to bury it.

        If the bill survives the committee process, it is brought up on
the floor of the particular house for a vote. So if the bill was
sponsored by a Senator, it would have been sent to the Senate
Judiciary Committee. If approved by Senate Judiciary, the bill would
be voted on by the full Senate. If approved by the full Senate, the
bill would then be sent over the House of Representatives.

        Once in the House of Representatives, the bill would go through
the same process, being assigned to a committee, and if successful in
committee, being voted on the full House of Representatives.

        Thus, opponents of a bill have at least four separate
opportunities to kill it: once in Senate Committee, once on the Senate
floor, once in the House Committee, and once on the House floor. As a
result, it's much easier to kill legislation than to pass it. This is
exactly as was intended by the framers of the federal and state
constitutions, who wished to guard against the proliferation of laws.

        At the city or county level, there will be only one legislative
body, and there may be no committees. So to be enacted, a bill may
need only to receive a single vote of approval. This is one important
reason why anti-gun forces have been so much more successful at the
local level than the state level. This is also one reason why
preemption laws are so important, in order to make sure that laws on
crucial issues like gun rights are made only at the state level.
(State legislatures can, if they wish to, enact laws ``preempting''
local laws on a particular subject, in order that legislation on the
subject be uniform throughout the state; about 40 states have some
form of preemption for gun laws.)

        If the bill has passed through the legislature, it is sent to the
executive branch (the president, governor, or mayor), for approval.
The executive may sign the bill, or veto it. If the bill is vetoed, it
may become law anyway, if two-thirds of each legislative body vote to
override the veto. (A few legislative bodies, such as the Indiana
legislature, can override the veto with a simple majority.)

        The above discussion is a general outline that leaves out numerous
details and complications. Legislators who are expert in legislative
procedure can find numerous ways to revive bills that have been
killed, to avoid the committee process, and to accomplish all sorts of
other strange results.

How to Get Information About the Law

        Most state capitols have a ``bill room'' or other area where
interested citizens can pick up copies of proposed legislation. In
some states, the bill room staff can mail a bill to you. You make
their life much easier by knowing the bill's number. Staffers for your
Congressperson can help you get copies of federal bills, although the
process will usually take a while.

        Studying the exact language of a bill is very important. Careful
review of the bill may save you from making false statements about the
bill which your opponents (or your legislator's staffer) will quickly
refute. In addition, legislators are more apt to be persuaded by
people who can discuss the concrete details of a bill, rather than
people who just make generic statements about ``gun control.''

        Careful attention to language is also important because major
results can flow from tiny revisions in drafting; just removing the
word ``or'' and replacing it with ``and'' can turn a reasonable gun law
into a highly repressive one.

        If you need to refer to existing city (municipal) law, the city
hall will have a copy of existing city laws. Law libraries, and some
public libraries, will have copies of state and federal laws. Most
courthouses will have their own small law library.

        Compilations of statutes will usually have a key-word index at the
end. If you don't find something under ``gun,'' look under ``firearms,''
``arms'' and ``weapons.''

        Bound volumes of statutes are not updated every year to reflect
new laws which have been passed. The new laws can be found in the
``pocket part'' at the back of each volume. Make sure to look in the
pocket part before considering your study of a particular law
complete. If there has been a change made in the last couple years,
the new wording will likely be found in the pocket part, and not the
main volume.

How Your Congressperson Gets Information

        Legislators suffer from the unhappy dilemma of being starved for
information at the same time they are drowning in it.

        Congresspeople must live and work in Washington, DC, but have to
represent the views of folks in their district. Indeed, staying
employed as a Congressperson means keeping the folks at home happy.
How can you live in Washington, and at the same time know what the
folks in Kalamazoo are thinking?

        Many state legislators face a similar problem. They live and work
in state capitols such as Albany, but have to represent the views of
their district far away in Brooklyn. How to stay in touch?

        One obvious way is to read the hometown newspapers. But while
newspapers are important sources of information, the concerns of
journalists aren't necessarily the concerns of ordinary folks. Yet
after a while, legislators tend to confuse newspaper opinion with
public opinion. So when the editorial board of your hometown newspaper
goes on an anti-gun rampage, your representative starts to think the
folks back home are against guns.

        Legislators also depend on letters from their district, which is
one reason that mail operations are so important to most legislative
offices. And legislators also rely on the in-person contacts they have
when they go back to the district.

        Yet while legislators are desperate for information from the
district, their are overwhelmed with information about legislation.
Even in the smallest state legislatures, elected officials must make
decisions about a bewildering variety of topics every day. Lobbyists
try to buttonhole the legislators as they walk from one committee to
another; bills hundreds of pages long are introduced on Monday and
require a vote on Wednesday; and a torrent of printed matter descends
on the legislative office every day.

        Knowing the twin conditions of information glut and information
starvation faced by the legislators, gear your presentations to cure
both problems at once. The most persuasive argument you can present to
a legislator is how a bill will affect his own district, and how
people at home will react--that cures the legislator's problem of
information starvation.

        Deliver your arguments in easy to understand, carefully-prepared
formats, such as a strong one-page letter, or a well-practiced five
minute presentation during an office meeting with the legislator.
Instead of just handing him a transcript or a book or a stack of
articles, you will have already digested the material for him, and
presented it to him in a readily accessible way. That cures his second
problem of information overload. (You can still hand him the stack of
articles that supports the information in your one-page issue summary;
he'll be impressed with your thoroughness, and his aide might actually
look at some of the articles.)

15. Letters to Elected Officials

``TO SIN BY SILENCE WHEN THEY SHOULD PROTEST MAKES COWARDS OUT OF MEN.''
Abraham LincolnCoalition of NJ Sportsmen, July 1991.

        The section on letters is one of the longest in the book. Why?
Because writing to legislators and other public officials is the
single most effective way for a regular person to influence the
political process. In preserving Second Amendment rights, nothing is
more important than exercising the First Amendment right to write
letters. For ease of reading, we refer to ``legislators'' in this
chapter, but the suggestions are equally applicable to any public
official

Style and Mechanics

        Include your return address, so the elected official can recognize
that you're from her district, and can send you a reply.

        If know or have met the legislator, and feel it is appropriate to
address him/her with a first name, do so. (A familiar salutation will
get more attention from the staffer, but will annoy the legislator if
you're never really met him.) If you're not in a position to write
``Dear Pat,'' then use either of the following salutations for Senators:

                Dear Senator

Dear Senator Grobnowski

The salutations for a member of the House of Representatives can be
any of the following:

                Dear Representative Zortch

                Dear Representative

                Dear Congressman

                Dear Congresswoman

                Dear Congressman Fudpucker

                Dear Congresswoman Zortch

                Dear Mr. Fudpucker

Use the same principles for other officials. ``Dear Governor'' and ``Dear
Governor Jameson'' are both fine; ``Dear Backstabbing Liar'' isn't.

        Keep the letter to one page or less. It's much more effective to
use your time to write several short letters instead of one long tome.

        If you'd like to convey more information than can fit on one page,
send along copies of supportive printed materials, such as newspaper
and magazine articles, or other studies.

        Type the letter if you can; otherwise write neatly.

        If you have personal or business stationary, use it.

        If you know the fax number for the office you're writing to, send
a fax, since faxes (being rarer than letters) get noticed.

        When you sign the letter, don't bother to include your affiliation
with a pro-rights organization (unless you're writing on behalf of the
organization). Your legislator already knows what the NRA thinks about
the bill, so adding ``NRA Life Member'' to your signature block doesn't
tell the legislator anything new. Gun rights groups get their
influence from citizen activists, not the other way around.

        In contrast, signing something about your role in the community
(college student, bus driver, nurse, or the like), may help the
legislator learn about the broad cross-section of the community that
is pro-rights.

        Originality is essential. You don't have to go do your own
statistical analysis of the effectiveness of state waiting period
laws. But you do have to say things in your own words. Simply mouthing
the slogans from pro-gun sources shows that you didn't care enough to
think up your own language. Since you appear less committed, your
letter will be less influential.

        If you feel shy because you may not write as smoothly as does
someone who writes for a gun magazine, don't worry. Legislators aren't
looking for superior rhetoric and linguistic excellence. They just
want to know that you care.

        Originality is also essential in the physical letter. Don't even
think of writing one letter, and sending photocopies to several
elected officials. If the issue isn't important enough to you to send
an original copy, the legislator won't worry much about pleasing you
with his vote.

        Of course you can use your word processor to send various original
print-outs of the same text to several legislators. As far as the
legislators can tell, they're getting an original.

        You can save time by keeping a letter-writing file containing the
addresses of officials you write to. Chapter 16 of this book contains
addresses for many federal officials, and includes space for you to
pencil in the addresses of everyone you write to.

        Encouraging other pro-gun people to write is an excellent idea.
Gun clubs can have ``letter parties'' at their monthly meetings. Bring a
supply of paper, envelopes, and pens, and let the club know about
what's going on in the legislature. Fifteen minutes later, all 25
members have written letters that are ready to be stamped and mailed.

When

        The time to write a letter is whenever a gun bill is being
considered by a legislative body. Over the course of a typical year,
everyone ought to write at least two letters each to her US
Representative, two Senators, President, Governor, and state
legislators. Some hardworking folks will write more often, and as long
as they don't write to the same official more than once every month or
two, every extra letter helps.

        The time to violate the one letter/month letter limit is for the
follow-up letters described below.

Who

        The most important people to mail to are people whose elections
you vote in. A Congressman from California doesn't care a lot about
what people in West Virginia think. So when you write people whose
election doesn't depend on your vote, focus on people who might want
to stay on your good side anyway. The US Representative who represents
a district on the other side of your state may care about you if he's
thinking of running statewide for Senator or Governor.

        Also, if a Congressperson has taken a leadership role on
pro-rights issues, send him or her a thank-you no matter where you
live. The Congressperson will like the idea of becoming a
nationally-known leader.

Substance

        Be polite. Honey catches more flies than vinegar.

        A letter should be about one particular issue or bill, which the
letter should identify right away. If you know the bill number,
mention it. For example: ``I am writing to let you know of my
opposition the proposal to outlaw many semiautomatic firearms, Senate
Bill 666.''

        Offer reasons why your action would be a good idea: ``The
preemption bill would make gun laws uniform throughout the state.
Everyone will have an easier time obeying one consistent set of laws,
instead of hodgepodge of city and county laws.''

        Mention anything about your background that would be especially
interesting to the official. If you are affiliated with law
enforcement (e.g., police officer, former prosecutor), say so. Same if
you're a kid. (Only people who are presently children should say so;
being a former child doesn't count.)

        It seems counterintuitive that being under the voting age would
make a legislator more interested in your letter, but it's true. First
of all, the legislator expects you to become a voter one day. Second,
children and teenagers are less involved than are adults in political
issues, so the fact that you are involved stands out all the more.
Most importantly, children and teenagers get less mail than adults do,
and tend to treat the mail they do get as more significant. Thus, the
legislator thinks that his letter to a young person may be brought to
a history or civics class for discussion, or at the very least talked
about within the young person's family.

        If you have voted for the elected official before, or contributed
to her campaign, or are an active member of her political party, let
her know. Of course don't make something up.

        If you are familiar with any of the legislator's past acts or
words on the gun issue, weave them into the letter. For example,
``During your campaign, you stated at a speech at South Bonaparte High
School that you were against gun control. I hope you will be able to
maintain the pro-rights commitment you made then by voting against the
waiting period bill.'' Or: ``Your vote several months ago in favor of
the ban on semiautomatic firearms was very disappointing. Too many of
our American rights have already been eroded. I hope you will be able
to protect what's left of the right to bear arms, and vote against the
waiting period bill.''

        Personalize the letter as much as you can. If you met the
legislator ten weeks ago at a public event, say so. It's okay if all
the meeting amounted to was you shaking his hand and saying ``I'm John
Josephson,'' and all he said was ``Nice to meet you.''

        The prior meeting need not have had any policy discussion to be
worth mentioning in your letter: ``It was good to say hello to you last
month at the county frog-jumping contest. I'd like to let you know
about my concern regarding the upcoming vote on S. 228, the handgun
waiting period bill.''

        Likewise, if you've met or talked with a staffer, say so: ``I
called your office last May to discuss the gun issue, and had the
pleasure of talking with your assistant Bob Anderson.'' And if the
staffer was pleasant or helpful, say so.

Things not to do

        Getting hysterical about the issue or making excessive assertions
doesn't work. ``If the gun registration bill is enacted this year, all
guns will be confiscated next year, and the Communists will take over
the year after that'' will not convince anyone.

        Bragging about how important or influential you are will not be
persuasive. If you're influential, use your influence to convince
other folks to write to the legislator.

Follow-through

        Less than one percent of people who write to Congress write a
response to their Congressperson's reply letter. Moreover, big
lobbying organizations have no ability to generate reply letters, so
legislators who read a reply know that you are strongly motivated.
Accordingly, follow-up letters get noticed by the Congressional staff.
And since your follow-up letter probably can't be replied to simply
with a form letter, the mail staffer may have to write an individual
reply, which will of course engage his attention all the more.

Follow-up to the Evasive Reply

        Your follow-up letter needs to be carefully keyed to the
legislator's reply. Be on the lookout for replies that were designed
to give the impression that the legislator is on your side, but
actually made no commitment. Phrases such as ``I am happy to let you
know that hearings on this issue have been scheduled,'' ``Many people
share your concern,'' ``I will keep your views in mind when the bill
comes for a vote,'' or ``I am following this legislation carefully,'' do
not, in themselves, indicate anything about the legislator's actual
view or intended actions.

        If the legislator sent you an evasive reply, write back and
politely ask for some substance: ``Thank you for replying my recent
letter about semiautomatic prohibition. Unfortunately, the reply
didn't answer the most important question: do you support or oppose
the prohibition?'' (From here, you can proceed as usual, offering an
argument or two in favor of the pro-rights position.)

Follow-up to the Negative Reply

        Another type of letter you may get, rather than being evasive, may
forthrightly explain that the legislator disagrees with you. In this
case, write back, and refute his arguments. However much the stupidity
or prejudice displayed by the letter may anger you, don't letter your
anger show through in your reply. Remain polite.

        Refuting the legislator's arguments can be difficult sometimes,
because the legislator is likely getting his ``facts'' from the anti-gun
lobby, and the facts may have no connection to reality. For example,
if he tells you that ``semi-automatics are 20 times more likely to be
used in a crime than other guns,'' you may have trouble refuting the
claim, unless you are happen to know that the ``20 times'' figure is a
distortion of statistics about firearms traces analyzed by Cox
newspapers. (For the truth about the ``20 times'' statistic, see The
``Assault Weapon'' Panic, Issue Paper, discussed in chapter 1.)

        So don't worry about refuting every single sentence, if you don't
have the facts at hand. Limit your reply to pointing out errors by the
legislator for which you do have the facts available.

        If any new facts have come to light about the issue, bring them up
in the letter, to offer the legislator a chance to reconsider.

        Include in the follow-up letter a question or two, designed to
force a response from the legislator.

        In your reply, recognize that the legislator was at least honest
enough to tell you how he feels. Here's a sample follow-up.

Thank you for answering my recent letter about semiautomatic
prohibition. I appreciate your honesty in stating that you would
support a gun ban. I think however, that your position may be based on
some mistaken facts.

For example, your letter claimed ``There is no reason why anyone needs
a machine gun in today's society.'' Actually, the semiautomatic
prohibition has nothing to do with machine guns. While some
semiautomatics look like machine guns, they do not fire like them. A
semiautomatic fires only one bullet at a time-- just like every other
gun. Would you agree that gun laws should be based on how guns
actually function, and not how they look?

Two weeks ago, the Hometown Gazette ran a story detailing how
so-called ``assault weapons'' are never used in crime. A copy of the
story is enclosed. In light of the new information, perhaps you would
want to re-evaluate your position regarding these guns.

Finally, I would like to point out that semi-automatics are very good
guns for home defense. Because the operation of the semi-automatic
action diverts recoil energy away from the shooter, the gun is easier
to fire accurately, and there is less chance of a stray shot. Were you
aware that semiautomatics are therefore actually safer for
self-defense than other guns?

Follow-up to the Positive Reply

        What would you think of a parents who scolded their children when
they did something bad, but ignored them when they did something good?
Well that's how most Americans treat their legislators. No wonder
things are such a mess!

        If you've written your legislator to ask to take a pro-rights
stand, and he writes back to say he will, by all means send him a
thank you letter. Supply some positive reinforcement.

        Consider making photocopies of the legislator's positive letter,
and giving them to your pro-rights friends. And when you write to
thank the legislator, tell him about how you're circulating his
letter. In effect, you've multiplied his favorable interaction with
one constituent into favorable interactions with a dozen constituents.

        In your thank you letter, mention any new facts that validate the
legislator's pro-rights stance. Send a copy of a recent editorial or
article or letter-to-the-editor that supports the pro-rights position.

        And finally, your reply can gently urge the legislator to take a
more active role on the issue--such as by cosponsoring a good bill, or
speaking up on the floor during debate.

        A sample thank you:

Thank you for responding to my letter from last month, and letting me
know that you support the firearms preemption bill. You are absolutely
right that things will be easier on the police and on ordinary folks
if there is one consistent set of gun laws that applies throughout the
state.

Enclosed is a letter to the editor from the South Wasquatch Herald.
The writer explains how she was arrested for carrying a firearm for
protection in East Wasquatch, even though carrying for protection is
legal in her hometown of South Wasquatch. The letter is just one more
example of why our state needs to have consistent, uniform laws.

In addition to voting for the preemption bill, would you consider
adding your name to the list of cosponsors? It's going to be a tough
fight to get the bill enacted, and any support you could offer would
be very helpful.

Telegrams and Mailgrams

        Generally speaking, mailgrams are better than telegrams, because
mailgrams contain up to a hundred words, while telegrams are much
shorter.

        The telegram's sole advantage is that it will arrive within four
hours, while a mailgram will arrive early in the morning the day after
it is sent.

        Mailgrams and telegrams are best when they are not a substitute
for a personal letter, but a supplement to it--as a last minute chance
to reemphasize your views.

        And mailgrams/telegrams do have some value for legislators who
still haven't made up their mind at the last minute. As the legislator
leaves his office to go to the floor and vote, an aide may tell him
``We got 20 mailgrams against the bill this morning.''

Who reads the letters?

        A major federal official probably won't read your particular
letter. But he might. President Johnson would often walk across the
street from the White House to the Executive Office Building and
personally sample some random letters from citizens. President
Johnson, like almost every other elected official, cared a lot about
what people thought of him. And he knew that anyone who cared enough
to write a letter probably had a pretty strong opinion.

        While most Congresspeople don't have time to read every letter,
they do take their mail seriously. Most Congresspeople believe that
answering letters promptly does more to help their re-election than
almost any amount of paid advertising. Letter-writers are people who
care about Congress, and are hence likely to vote, and to influence
how their friends and family vote.

        Congresspeople like getting mail from home so much that if it
falls in volume, they get nervous. The issue questionnaires that some
Congresspeople send out are intended in part to stimulate mail.

        Most state legislators or city councilpersons read everything sent
to them. And no matter what, the letter will almost certainly be read
by a staff member for the legislator.

        These staffers are particularly important people to influence.
Usually they are young, well-educated people who are doing legislative
mail (and many other staff jobs) for a few years or a few months. Some
of them go into politics later, and nearly all of them end up having a
reasonably large influence on public policy somehow.

        For almost all of them, their job doing letters is the first time
that they've worked full-time inside government. They're just learning
the ins and outs of a world that's always interested them. They're
impressionable, and they beginning to live in a world where big
government is regarded more highly than folks in the rest of the
country regard it.

        At this impressionable time, the staffers are forming their views
on issues which they may not have thought about much until then. Gun
control will likely be one. When you send letters that are polite and
neat and easy to read, and when you use the letters to bring up
convincing arguments, the staffers are paying attention.

        If you keep up with writing letters several times a year, it's
likely that you'll end up provoking some positive thought in a staffer
one day. Although you'll never see the exact result of your work,
you'll be doing a world of good.

        And of course even the staffers who are jaded and don't care still
count the mail, and all legislators still pay close attention to the
mail count.

        Even if your legislator is already solidly pro-rights, letters
still help. She can use the letters to help influence her colleagues.
For example, if her mail tells her that a proposed federal ban on
semiautomatics would harm the many target competition clubs in her
district, she can use the fact to urge her fellow representatives to
oppose the ban.

        Does mail make a difference? Colorado in early 1989 was ready to
outlaw all semiautomatic firearms using a detachable magazine. Popular
Governor Roy Romer had said so. The major chiefs of police agreed. The
President of the State Senate gave the gun ban a special legislative
preference. When concerned gun owners tried to hire a professional
lobbyist, no-one would accept their money. The lobbyists didn't want
to waste time trying to stop a bill that was certain to pass.

        A few weeks later, gun prohibition was defeated by a 5-4 vote in
the first committee to consider it. Why? Thousands of Colorado
gun-owners had written letters to state legislators.

        The same story is repeated every legislative season. In 1991,
Maryland's anti-gun Governor William Donald Schaefer suffered a
humiliating defeat when the Maryland Senate responded to the tens of
thousands of Marylanders who sent letters to the Capitol, and rejected
Schaefer's ban on semiautomatics.

        The pen really is mightier than the sword--or at least mightier
than William Donald Schaefer's mouth.

16. Letter and Telephone Master List

        ``ETERNAL VIGILANCE IS THE PRICE OF LIBERTY.'' Wendell Phillips,
abolitionist leader.

        The listings below include blank space for you to fill in
information about your own elected officials.

President: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20500. White
House opinion line at 202-456-1111.

Vice-President: Same address as the President.

U.S. Senators (two): US Senate, Washington DC 20510. Salutation is:
The Honorable (First name and last name).        Your Senators also have
districts office in your home state; the addresses are listed in the
blue pages of the phone book.

U.S. Representative: US House of Representatives, Washington DC 20515.
Salutation is: The Honorable (First name and last name). Your US
Representative also has a district office in her home state; the
address is listed in the blue pages of the phone book.

Capital Switchboard: Will connect you with any Senator's or
Representative's office. (202) 224-3121.

Republican National Committee: 310 E. 1st St. SE, Wash., DC 20003.
(202) 863-8500. fax: (202) 863-8820.

Democratic National Committee: 430 S. Capitol St. SE, Wash., DC 20003.
(202) 863-8000. fax (202) 863-8091

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW,
Wash., DC 20226. (202) 566-7511.

Governor: As a general rule, State legislators and the Governor can be
found at the State Capitol. If you don't know who your State Senator
and State Representative are, your County Election Commission (also in
the blue pages of the phone book) can tell you.

State Senator:

State Representative or State Assemblyman:

Mayor:

City Councilperson or County Commissioner:

        Below are phone numbers for state government offices in a few
states. Note that the toll-free ``800'' numbers listed below are usable
only with the relevant state.

California

Governor (916) 445-2841.

Assembly Speaker (916) 445-8077.

Senate President Pro Tem (916) 445-8390.

Attorney General (916) 361-3109.

California State Legislature (all Senators and Assemblymen): State
Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814.

Colorado

Governor: State Capitol, Denver, CO 80203. (303) 866-2471; (800)
332-1716.

Senators and Representatives: Same address.

Connecticut

Governor (800) 842-2220.

House Democrats (800) 842-8267; 1902.

House Republicans (800) 842-8270; 1423.

Senate Democrats (800) 842-1420.

Senate Republicans (800) 842-1421.

``Turn in Poachers'' tip line (800) 842-4357.

Pennsylvania

Governor's Office. 225 Main Capitol Building, Harrisburg, PA 17120.
(800) 932-0748.

State Representatives: Pennsylvania House of Representatives,
Harrisburg, PA 17120. (717) 787-2372.

State Senators: Pennsylvania Senate, Harrisburg, PA 17120. (717)
787-5920.

Texas

Governor's Opinion hotline. (800) 843-5789.

17. Computer Letters

        ``THEY'LL HAVE TO SHOOT ME FIRST TO TAKE MY GUN.'' Roy Rogers,
discussing proposed California ``handgun freeze.''

        The advance of technology helps the Second Amendment, as guns get
better. Progress also helps the First Amendment, where computers are
making writing a letter to Congress even easier than writing by hand
or by typewriter. Word processors make it simple to send the same
letter to your two Senators, and just change the address. A few months
later, the computer letter can be revised slightly, and sent to the US
Representative.

Help other people write

        If you own a personal computer and a printer, and you're adept at
word processing, consider setting up a letter table at a gun show.
Visitors to the gun show give you their name and address, which you
input into the computer, which outputs letters ready to mail.

        At one gun show, a man brought his personal computer and printer,
along with pre-written letters to the President, the Republican
National Committee Chairman, the Governor, and US and state Senators
and Representatives. The man also brought stamps, envelopes, and a
good supply of printer paper. He ended up generating 1,608 pro-rights
letters, and raised $1212.80 in voluntary donations.

        David Bollinger, a Texan who runs a group called ``Civil
Rights...Civil Responsibility,'' also sets up a computer for letter
writing at gun shows, and offers these tips:

o         Make sure to tell the gun show operator that you will need an
electrical hook-up.

o         Ask a local gun store if they could chip in to pay the table fee
(usually 30-80 dollars).

o         Pull your table about six inches back from the aisle, thereby
giving the impression of a small island amidst the sea of customers.

o         If you're not charging anything, make sure your display banner
says ``FREE.''

o         Bring extra paper, and a large supply of pens, and expect some of
the pens to walk off during the course of the day.

o         Voluntary donations can be collected in a small-mouthed
transparent plastic jug, with a label like ``Donations gratefully
accepted.''

o         Bring wire ties with which to control the computer cables.

o         A sheet draped over the front of the table helps protect the
cables and equipment from children.

o         Lay out samples of letters that you will generate. Print plenty
in advance, since some will walk off.

o         Learn the legislative district boundaries for the areas near the
gun show, since many people will not know who their representatives
are.

o         Morning hours will be slower than the afternoon.

o         Don't get mad at people who don't stop at the table to write a
letter. They may have already written on their own.

o         Do some advance research, and prepare letters tailored to the
different officials that people will be writing too. A letter to the
President might have a different content than a letter to a pro-gun
Representative than a letter to an anti-gun Senator.

o         Bring some carts for hauling your equipment in and out of the
show.

o         Don't have the letters pre-metered, and don't mail them in zip
code bundles. The letters make more of an impact if they arrive one at
a time, with less of a mass-produced look. (Encouraging people to add
a ``p.s.'' can also help individualize the letters; but any letter is
much better than no letter at all.)

        To make things even easier, Bollinger has written a computer
program called ``Letergen'' designed especially for use at gun shows.
It's not a program suited for a computer novice; a user needs to be
familiar with terms such as ``ASCII,'' ``path,'' and ``print buffer.''
The program also requires a few hours of work entering legislators'
addresses and draft letters before it's ready to use at a gun show.
But once it's up and running, Letergen can help you generate a lot of
letters very quickly. The only flaw is that the program's model
``anti'' letters (chastising legislators for bad votes) are too
hostile; happily, the program allows you to write your own model
letters.  Bollinger sells a DOS version for five dollars. If you want
the program, write to David Bollinger at 7410 Silent Sunset, San
Antonio, TX 78250, (512) 647-0547. Make sure to specify the disk size
and density you want.

18. Petitions

        ``CONSTITUTIONS ARE CHECKS UPON THE HASTY ACTION OF THE MAJORITY.
THEY ARE SELF-IMPOSED RESTRAINTS OF A WHOLE PEOPLE UPON A MAJORITY OF
THEM TO SECURE SOBER ACTION AND A RESPECT FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE
MINORITY.'' President William Howard Taft, veto of the Arizona Enabling
Act, August 22, 1911.

        Petitions have played a long and honorable role in the American
struggle for freedom. Besides helping to influence government, the
gathering of petitions is valuable in its own right, since it
stimulates debate and individual involvement. If done correctly,
petitions can also stimulate media interest.

        Like any other request to a government official, the petition
should ask the official to take a particular action.

        The message of the petition should be short enough to be easily
read in a few seconds by a person who is thinking of signing. The
message should be stated directly and forcefully. For example: ``We the
undersigned residents of Kansas support the right of law-abiding
persons to own the type of firearm best-suited to their needs. We urge
our representatives to vote against bans on semiautomatic firearms,
which have many legitimate uses for personal protection, hunting, and
target shooting.''

        And the message should not contain ideas or references that the
average person would not recognize. A petition isn't the place for
quotations from the Wright, Rossi, & Daly National Institute of
Justice study.

        Petitions are good when you have a large mass of enthusiastic
volunteers who have little experience. The petition gets the
volunteers into action, and creates community outreach and discussion.

        When Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he replied
``That's where the money is.'' To gather petitions, go where the people
is: colleges, busy downtown sidewalks, factory gates, parks, county
fairs, and other similar places.

        Remember that private property owners--including shopping mall
owners--have a right to exclude you. (A few states, including
California, require mall owners to make their space available to the
public for political activity.) And on public property, be careful not
to obstruct access to buildings, or to impede the flow of pedestrian
traffic.

        After someone signs the petition, hand him a leaflet, encouraging
further action. After all, by signing the petition, he's already
indicated that he's friendly. The leaflet might urge him to write or
call certain elected officials to voice his support on the issue
raised in the petition. The leaflet should supply the names, full
address, and telephone number of elected officials.

        If you get a large number of petitions, stage some kind of
dramatic presentation to their target, and invite the media along. And
since you've gone to all the work of gathering the petitions, bring
your own photographer along to record the presentation.

        Good occasions to present petitions to elected officials are when
you meet with the official, or when you testify at a public hearing,
or when the official attends a meeting of a pro-rights organization
you are affiliated with.

        While petitions have value, they are far from the most effective
way to influence elected officials. What officials look for in judging
public sentiment is depth of commitment. One person who makes the
personal effort to write a letter to Congress does more good than 15
people who sign petitions. (Likewise, sending in pre-printed postcards
is not a particularly powerful way to get a legislator's attention.)

        So in deciding whether to start a petition drive, consider how you
want to deploy your resources. If the folks out gathering petitions
from the public in general could instead be encouraging other pro-gun
folks to write actual letters, the time might be better spent on
letter generation. Still, petitions offer an opportunity to interact
with the public, and can be a lot of fun.

19. The Magic Words

``NEVER DOUBT THAT A SMALL GROUP OF THOUGHTFUL, COMMITTED CITIZENS CAN
CHANGE THE WORLD. INDEED, IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT EVER HAS.'' Margaret
Mead.

         A few years ago, the book Everything I Needed to Know I Learned
in Kindergarten came out. The title is particularly appropriate for
communications with legislators. Like a kindergartner, a legislator
may understand virtually nothing of what you're talking about. He may
never have touched a gun in his life. And so, as we discussed above,
it's important that you explain you point of view to him in a
well-organized fashion that doesn't assume a lot of knowledge about
the issue.

        Also, just like Dave's teachers insisted in kindergarten, the
``magic words'' of ``please'' and ``Thank you'' really do help you get
along. Some Congressmen get dozens of letters a week, and others get
thousands. But no-one gets more than a handful of thank you letters.

        In a sea of pleas asking a Congressperson to do something, a thank
you is a pleasant surprise to the Congressional aide reading and
responding to the mail.        Another reason thank yous are important:
After a pro-gun vote, the legislator stops hearing from the pro-rights
forces (who are content with the vote) and starts catching grief from
the antis, particularly the antis in the media. A nice thank you
letter helps remind the legislator that the pro-rights forces are
still there, even after the vote.

        Praise need not be limited to perfect legislators. If a legislator
has generally been anti-gun, but then casts a pro-gun vote, give him
some applause.

        Just as being nice helps our cause, being a jerk helps our
enemies. Don't call legislators late at night; don't show up at their
home unannounced; and don't assume that people who disagree with you
have evil motives. Several years ago, the Philadelphia City Council
enacted a severe law requiring police permission to buy a handgun; the
bill might have been defeated, but a few bad apples ruined our cause
by making abusive phone calls to the Councilpersons.

        Remember, our objective is to demonstrate that people who own guns
are just as responsible (maybe even more so) as anyone else. It's the
gun prohibitionists who want legislators to think that gun owners are
a bunch of borderline psychopaths, and it's the irresponsible gun
owners who assist the gun control lobby.

20. Telephone

        ``ON THE 18TH OF APRIL IN SEVENTY-FIVE NARY A MAN IS NOW
ALIVE, WHO REMEMBERS THAT FAMOUS DAY AND YEAR, OF THE MIDNIGHT RIDE OF
PAUL REVERE''

        Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

        When Paul Revere (and also William Dawes and Samuel Prescott) rode
through the night yelling ``The British are coming; the British are
coming!'' they were alerting Americans that the next day, the British
redcoats would be marching on Lexington and Concord to seize
Americans' arms there.

        Because of the heroic rides of Revere and Dawes and Prescott,
American militiamen were assembled ready to face the British the next
morning on the Lexington Green and on the Concord Bridge.

        The Americans were routed at Lexington, but at the Concord Bridge,
there ``the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard 'round
the world.'' The men of Concord smashed the Redcoats, and chased them
all the way back to Boston. The American Revolution had begun and
America had won the first battle--all because three brave men had
risked their lives to alert their fellow citizens.

        Today, it wouldn't be very efficient to jump on a horse and yell
``The bureaucrats are coming; the bureaucrats are coming.'' But they are
coming, and they want your guns. Success in a legislative committee
hearing, like success in battle, depends on turning out large numbers
of well-prepared forces. In mobilizing the pro-rights forces, the
telephone today does that work that Paul Revere's horse did in 1775.
The phone tree is more comfortable than a midnight horse ride, but
it's just as important.

Calling Legislators

        Just as powerful as letters are telephone calls. Telephone calls
also allow you to fire one last salvo in the final days before a
crucial vote. It's always helpful for an undecided legislator to be
told by his aide ``Thirty calls came in this morning in support of the
preemption bill.''

        Most of the same rules that apply to writing to elected officials
apply to phone calls too: stick to a single action you want the
official to take (like vote for a particular bill). Express yourself
politely.

        When you call, ask for the legislator's assistant who deals with
right to bear arms issues.

        The address and telephone master list in chapter 16 lists the
numbers of some elected officials, and provides room for you to add
more.

Phone Trees

        One of the most effective legislative tactics for gun clubs and
local gun rights groups is to set up a phone tree.

        The tree operates as a system for one person (such as the Chair)
to call five people (or thereabouts) who in turn call five more
people, who in turn call five more, until the whole club gets the
telephone tree message--hopefully within 24 hours or less. The
organizational chart for the telephone tree lists exactly who will
call whom, and at what phone number. Persons who can be counted on to
be especially responsible (and to call back later if the first call
goes unanswered) should be placed near the beginning of the tree.

        An alternative to the phone tree is the phone circle. There, the
initiator calls person one, who calls person two, who calls person
three, until the last person is called. The last person then calls the
initiator, who then knows that the circle has been completed, and
everyone has been called.

        Phone circles are best for groups of a dozen or less people. If
the initiator hasn't received his confirmation call on time, he can
begin calling through the circle, to see where the circle was broken.

        Phone trees are much more effective than phone circles at reaching
larger groups of people rapidly. Their weakness is that if one person
near the top of the tree neglects to make his calls, a large number of
people down the line will never be notified. Thus, the phone tree
organizers need to make spot calls, to check the progress of the
message down the tree.

        Telephone trees are used for rapid mobilization, when there's no
time to wait until the next club meeting. Trees can tell members about
upcoming legislative hearings, or remind them to vote on election day,
or urge them to attend a rally.

        The tree message has to be simple, because complicated messages
get garbled when passed through several people. The purpose of a tree
isn't to educate; it's to mobilize people who are already inclined to
our point of view. After all, Paul Revere road through town with a
simple message that ``The British are coming.'' He didn't offer detailed
arguments about why King George's tax policies were unfair.

        The importance of telephone trees is proven every legislative
season, when gun club members and their friends and families pack a
room to watch a hearing on a bill affecting gun rights. It makes a
very powerful impression on legislators when they see the whole room
filled with pro-rights citizens.

        Phone trees are particularly important at election times. A few
dozen votes is often the margin of victory in tight state
representative or city council seat. If you and a few friends can make
a few hundred phone calls in the two weekends before the election, you
can put a pro-gun candidate over the top.

21. Visiting Your Legislators and their Staff

``FREEDOM EXISTS ONLY WHERE PEOPLE TAKE CARE OF THE GOVERNMENT.''
Woodrow Wilson

How to Set up a Meeting

        Ask for one. If you'll be in the capital city, call and ask to
make an appointment. Or call the legislator's hometown office, and ask
for an appointment when the legislator is in town.

        If the legislator just doesn't have room in her schedule, you'll
probably be given an appointment with a staff assistant. That's fine
too.

        Don't take the legislator sending a staff assistant to meet you as
a personal snub. Legislators have overwhelming demands on their time.
It's nearly impossible to get a meeting with a United States Senator,
unless you are from a very small state.

        Your chances of getting an appointment with the legislator
herself, or of getting a relatively longer meeting with the staffer,
increase if you are making the appointment for a group of people.
(Seven people is about the largest practical size for an office
meeting.)

        The comments below refer to meeting with a ``legislator,'' but are
equally applicable to other public officials, and to assistants to
those officials.

Preparation

        Familiarize yourself in detail with the legislator's voting record
on the gun issue. Your NRA state liaison or the CCRKBA staff will
usually have the legislator's history on file.

        Take along a one-page fact sheet, with a concise summary of the
issue you want to discuss. Legislators appreciate having arguments
boiled down to their essentials, and preparing the fact sheet will
help you collect your own thoughts.

        As you prepare what you will be saying to the legislator, make
sure that you have hard facts to back up every single statement you
make.

        If you want to bring more material, to give the legislator as
background, bring some editorials or newspaper clippings; write your
name and address on the items, so that when the legislator or his
staffer reads it later, he'll remember where it came from.

        Also remember that legislators are in the business of making laws,
just as meat factories are in the business of making sausage. So if
you tell a legislator that gun control is not the solution to crime,
be prepared to be asked if you have any better solutions.

        Similarly, many legislators understand that gun control won't do a
lot of good, but they think it might help a little, and they feel a
need to ``do something.'' So be prepared to explain how the particular
gun control would not only be ineffective, but would be actively
harmful.

        In addition, legislators want to vote for each other's bills. This
is particularly true for legislators of the same party. The desire
stems partly from a natural inclination to get along with the people
you spend all day with, and partly from the necessity of maintaining
friendships to get the legislator's own bills passed. As a result, you
need to look for ways to help the legislator protect the Bill of
Rights and keep on a positive plane with his fellow legislators. For
example, a bad bill can often be fixed with some simple amendments. If
you suggest to your legislator that he introduce amendments to a
bill--rather than just oppose the bill outright--he can amend the bad
bill into a good bill, and can stay on good terms with the bill's
sponsor.

        It's extremely important (and this also applies when you testify
before a legislative committee) to read the bill in question
thoroughly. Get together all of the pro-rights people who will be
attending for a ``pre-meeting'' to discuss the agenda, and map out who
will say what. Designate one person as the group leader, who will lead
the meeting through the agenda.

        The visit should be confined to one topic, such as a particular
piece of legislation. You should present the legislator with concrete
acts you would like him to take (such as cosponsoring a bill).

During the Visit

        BE ON TIME! In fact, plan to be early, thereby leaving time for
getting stuck in traffic, lost, etc. The legislator may run on a very
tight schedule, and if you're not ready when he is, your meeting may
vanish.

        While you should be early, accept the risk that the legislator may
be extremely late. He may be coming from another meeting someplace
else, and be unavoidably delayed. Take the lateness in stride, and
don't let it spoil your attitude for the meeting itself.

        Dress in a conservative business suit, or at least a jacket and
tie.

        Legislators are people too, and appreciate friendly behavior just
as much as your neighbors and business colleagues do. So start the
meeting with a compliment about something the legislator has done that
you liked.

        If you know somebody who knows the legislator, drop the name:
``Eddie Jackalope, one of your campaign volunteers, said to say hello;
we live down the block.''

        No matter how unhappy the legislator's statements make you, be
courteous.

        Legislators have to vote on dozens of complex issues every week,
and they rarely have time to master a single issue in detail. So gear
your presentation to the level of an intelligent generalist--someone
who may not know a lot about the gun issue, but who has a good ability
to pick out the essential facts necessary for a decision.

        Your basic presentation should take a maximum of five minutes.
(The entire meeting may be as short as ten minutes, and will almost
never be more than half an hour.) The most important points should be
brought up first. The presentation should emphasize the impact that
the particular issue would have on the community the legislator
represents.

        Legislators learn how to make decisions in a hurry. Thus, be
prepared for direct, challenging questions. Prepare yourself by going
over the most difficult questions someone could ask, and coming up
with answers.

        And if the legislator does start throwing you some hard questions,
don't get defensive and assume he's an enemy. Asking tough questions
may simply be his way of getting to understand the issue. After all,
if he supports you, then he'll have to answer ever tougher questions
from his anti-gun colleagues.

        In a legislator's office, just like everywhere else, the most
successful talkers are the people who are the best listeners. Pay
attention to what the legislator is saying, and give his questions the
good answers they deserve.

        If, instead of talking about the issue at hand, the legislator
wanders off the topic of the meeting, bring the topic up again when
it's your turn to talk.

        If the legislator agrees to take the action you want (cosponsoring
a good bill, voting against a bad bill, or whatever), give him the
praise he deserves, and let him know that folks in his district
appreciate his pro-rights stance.

        If you can't tell what the legislator will do, ask him directly.
He may tell you that he hasn't made up his mind--which is a reasonable
answer. (And it's also an answer that should trigger additional
efforts on your part to influence him later--such as doing everything
you can to get other pro-rights people to write him letters).

        Give the legislator your one-page fact sheet at the end of the
meeting. If you give it the legislator earlier, he may focus on the
written material, instead of on you.

        If you're meeting with the legislator on behalf of a local pro-gun
group, ask if you can have a quick black & white photo taken of your
group with the legislator. (Bring your own camera, flash, and loaded
film.) The picture can be used in the group's newsletter, to
demonstrate your good relations with elected officials.

        If by the end of the visit you have not met the legislator's aide
who deals with gun issues, ask to be introduced.

Afterwards

        Send your NRA state liaison a note or give him a call to let him
know how the meeting went, and where the legislator stands.

        Whether or not you got the result you wanted during the meeting,
follow up by sending a thank-you note for the opportunity to have the
meeting. If the legislator hasn't taken action one way or the other in
regards to your request, ask specific questions about what she plans
to do.

        This kind of follow-up is very impressive to legislators, because
so many concerned citizens don't follow up. When you do follow up, the
legislator will take you all the more seriously.

Informal Meetings

        Formal office meetings aren't the only place you can see your
legislators. They're likely to be out and about at all sorts of
community events, including fairs, receptions, town meetings, civic
group meetings, barbecues, and clambakes. Call the legislator's
office, and ask what events she will be attending which are open to
the public. Even things which you might think are closed--such as a
political fund-raising dinner --are usually open to anyone willing to
buy a ticket.

        Federal elected officials have an appointments secretary who keeps
track of their calendar; state and local officials usually have one
assistant who handles that chore and many others. If you call the
legislator's office and talk to the appointments person, they can tell
you of upcoming times when the legislator will be in your area. In
fact, they'll be glad to tell you, since legislators stay in office by
meeting and making fast friends with their constituents.

        When you know the legislator's next appearance, recruit some
friends to go there with you, and give him their own two sentence
pro-rights speeches. If the legislator will be at a paid event, such
as a political fund-raiser, shell out the money if you can afford it.
Besides having the chance for your two-sentence dialogue with the
legislator, you can meet lots of other government officials and party
volunteers. And when different people at the county fair and the
district fund-raiser and the town meeting and the high school talent
contest all come up to the legislator and suggest that he support the
right to bear arms, he'll get the idea that the gun rights are
important to the folks back home.

        These informal gatherings are not the place to get the legislator
alone for a 15-minute discussion on gun control. But they are a good
place to introduce yourself, shake hands, and make an acquaintance.

        The legislator will need to circulate at the gathering, and meet
as many people as possible, so your opportunity for dialogue may be as
little as one sentence or two. Of course the two sentence can be
pro-rights sentences, such as ``Thanks for all your good work, Mr.
Cravath; I hope you'll vote against the waiting period bill when it
comes up next month.''

        Once you're an acquaintance of the legislator, you can write to
her on a first name basis, and refer to your previous meeting. (See
chapter 15 for the beneficial impact this will have on your letters to
the elected official.)

        If you're interested in setting up an office meeting to discuss an
issue, now's the time to set the stage. When you're introduced, ask
``Could I come see you at your office and talk about the waiting period
bill?'' The legislator will usually say yes, thereby giving you the
opportunity to call her office and ask ``I met Representative Cahill at
Democratic Party dinner last week, and she said to set up a time to
come see her and talk about the waiting period bill. What would be the
most convenient time for her?''

        Even though the representative didn't specifically say so, you may
end up meeting with a staff assistant, rather than the legislator
herself. As discussed above, that's still good.

22. Study Your Legislator, Her Friends, and Staff

        ``DON'T PUT NO CONSTRICTIONS ON DA PEOPLE. LEAVE 'EM TA HELL
ALONE.'' Jimmy Durante.

        Every legislator has friends and allies--lots in fact, that's why
she won the election. Some of those friends and allies may be
pro-rights, and might be willing to put a word in with their
legislative friend, if you ask them.

        How do you find the legislator's friends? Look in the public
record.

        Every Congressional candidate, and most state candidates, have to
file reports listing their campaign contributors. (Small donations
usually don't need to be reported.) The Congressional reports are on
file with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in Washington, DC.
(1325 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20463. 800-424-9530.). Reports must
usually be filed on a quarterly basis; the quarterly reports are
consolidated into a final report for each election. When asking for
reports, specify whether you want the quarterly reports, the final
report, or both, and the time period you want (e.g., ``all quarterly
reports for 1983 through 1992.'') The FEC charges a photocopying and
document retrieval fee.

        The state reports will usually be filed with the Secretary of
State's office in each state capitol. (At the state level, the
position of Secretary of State has nothing to do with US foreign
policy; it's mostly a record-keeping job.)

        For both federal and state election reports, remember how busy
election time is for the agencies that receive and process the
reports. If you make a document production request around election
time, give the agency plenty of lead time.

        The campaign finance reports will list major donations,
expenditures, and will also list some of the major campaign officers.

        Guides to Congress, such as the Almanac of American Politics,
Congressional Directory, and Congressional Quarterly Politics in
America all have biographies of Congresspersons. Available at
high-quality bookstores and most libraries, these books tell you facts
such as where the Congressperson went to school, what jobs he's held,
what religion he believes in, and what issues interest him.

        Many state legislatures publish low-cost booklets giving short
biographies of the members.

        Your town library may also have back issues of the local newspaper
on microfilm or microfiche, plus an index to the old newspaper
articles. Biographical articles about the legislator will be a strong
source of information, and may tell you who his political allies are.

        Computer databases such as Prodigy, Compuserve, and Nexis may also
be useful. These databases usually contain a specialized political
biography library. Even better, they also contain full-text versions
of newspaper articles, allowing you to pull up dozens or hundreds of
articles dealing with every facet of the legislator's career.

        If the legislator is an attorney, his law firm will be listed in
the Martindale Hubbell law directory. The massive multi-volume
reference, available in all law libraries, and some general libraries,
lists every attorney or law firm in each state, in alphabetical order
by city. For lawyers who are affiliated with large law firms, the
directory also often lists major clients of the firm.

        As you find out about the legislator's circle of friends, you may
recognize some people that you also know. And if you don't know
anybody the legislator knows, then somebody in the local gun rights
organization may share a common acquaintance with the legislator.

Staff

        As we've said, good relationships with staff members are
important, so you may want to do some research about the legislator's
staff. Detail about the staff person can most likely be found in
newspaper articles, and in computer databases which compile newspaper
articles.

        When you're interacting with legislative staff, a good staffer
will throw the hardest questions he can at you. After all, the
legislator is going to ask him hard questions about the staffer's
recommendation, and the legislator's colleagues are going to ask the
legislator even harder questions.

        While the staffer will be trying to ask hard questions, he may ask
ignorant ones too. Like the legislator, the staffer must be a jack of
all trades, and can't be expected to master every issue. Staffers look
good when they provide their boss with solid, reliable information. So
when you provide such information to the staffer, you begin to give
him a reason to like you.

        There are some important differences between staffer and boss.
First, only the boss has the authority to make a commitment, so don't
demand that the staffer promise you positive action by his boss.

        Also, the legislator is used to rough-and-tumble verbal combat.
The staffer isn't. (The legislator's facility with human interaction
is one reason that she's a legislator, and the staffer is a staffer.)
While you don't want to provoke verbal clashes with legislators, you
want to be even more careful about keeping things courteous with
staff.

        Staffers have their advantages too. For instance, they're likely
not to be as pressed for time as the legislator is. Your meetings may
last longer.

        Also, there's a greater chance that the staffer will accept your
offers for activities outside the office, such as a gun demonstration
at the firing range, or a 25 minute lunch at the capitol cafeteria
(Dutch treat).

        Likewise, if you give a staffer a pro-rights book or monograph,
there's a chance he'll actually look at part of it.

        How easy it is to get the staffer's attention is will vary with
who the staffer works for. Senior Washington staff for United States
Senators are quite powerful, and quite busy.

        The above suggestions have focused mainly on legislative
assistants--the staff personnel who help legislators evaluate issues
and answer mail. Good manners, though, are never out of place no
matter who you're dealing with. Smart journalists make a point of
being pleasant to the secretaries they meet, since secretaries can be
a wonderful source of information about their boss. Making a pleasant
acquaintance with everyone in the legislator's office, powerful or
not, will make your dealings there more pleasant, and may also,
perhaps, yield a valuable advance notice of something important.

23. Help a Pro-rights Candidate-

``THOSE WHO EXPECT TO REAP THE BLESSINGS OF FREEDOM MUST, LIKE MEN,
UNDERGO THE FATIGUE OF SUPPORTING IT.'' Thomas Paine.

        Most people have never volunteered for a political campaign
before, and imagine that folks without previous experience wouldn't
fit in. Not at all. The majority of volunteer tasks are simple and
straightforward. Campaign volunteers can stuff envelopes, or put up
yard signs, or make telephone calls, or pass out literature
door-to-door, or hand out information at gun shows. Enthusiasm and
energy, not prior history, is what makes a good volunteer. Almost any
campaign will have a job that needs doing and which a novice can feel
comfortable doing.

        The actual jobs you do as a volunteer might have something to do
with guns--such as handing out the candidate's literature at gun shows.
More likely, the volunteer work that needs doing may have nothing to
do with the gun issue. That's alright. The objective, after all, is to
help the pro-rights candidate win, not to spend your time talking
about guns.

        While the campaign schedule varies from state to state, the
earlier you volunteer, the more good you can do, and the more chance
you have to earn yourself positions of greater and greater
responsibility (if you want them). Also, by getting involved sooner,
you can help a candidate in the primary election, not just in the
general election. Since voter turnout in the primaries is relatively
low, good volunteers can make all the more difference.

        The best candidates to volunteer for are ones whom you know to be
stalwart friends of the Second Amendment. If you're not sure which
race would be the best to get involved in, call NRA/ILA's state &
local affairs office. Ask for the liaison for your state, and he'll
point you in the direction of the most important local campaigns.

        While volunteers make a big difference in statewide races, they
are even more important in smaller, local races, such as state
legislature or city council. The candidates in these races all have
less money, and have to rely on volunteers to spread the word.

        Besides working as a volunteer, you can:

o         Make a monetary contribution to a pro-rights candidate

o         Talk to at least 5 friends or neighbors about the importance of
voting for pro-rights candidates

o         Display a yard sign on bumper sticker for pro-rights candidates

o         And of course, vote for pro-rights candidates.

        When you're mailing in your contribution, or picking up your yard
sign at campaign headquarters, let a campaign staffer know that your
support is based on the candidate's positive stand on the right to
bear arms.

        Does your work make a difference? You bet--sometimes even when we
lose. Governor William Schaefer has long been a vehement gun
prohibitionist. In 1988, Schaefer's political machine blackmailed
regulated businesses like banks and insurance companies to make them
contribute to a campaign against small handguns.

        Fred Griiser, who led the (losing) fight in 1988 against
Schaefer's gun ban, ran against Schaefer in the 1990 Democratic
primary. Griiser had only $10,000 to spend against Schaefer's 1.2
million dollar war chest. The press ignored Griiser, refusing to even
acknowledge that he was running. Yet in the Democratic primary,
Griiser tallied an impressive 23% of the vote.

        In the general election, Schaefer outspent his opponent 20 to 1.
Schaefer's Republican opponent faced the further handicap of being a
political novice who had selected his wife as a running mate. The
political pros expected Schaefer to sweep the state and win over 75%
of the vote.

        But on election day, Schaefer came home with only 60%, and
actually lost in a majority of the state's counties. Everyone,
including Schaefer's allies, took the relatively narrow margin against
a very weak opponent as a personal repudiation of Schaefer's
arrogance.

        The Governor's opponent, William Shephard, explained that many of
his own votes came from Marylanders fed up with Schaefer's support for
gun control. Schaefer had long been speculating about a run for the
Presidency, speculation which his miserable performance against two
weak opponents has now ended.

Recall Elections

        Talk of recall elections for legislators who make you mad is
almost always political idiocy. The pro-rights vote rarely exceeds
five percent, so it's foolish to imagine turning someone out of office
in a special election over the gun issue. Wait till the next regular
election, when the Second Amendment vote can make a difference in a
close race.

Group Involvement

        Besides volunteering as an individual, you can join--or
lead--election mobilization on behalf of your gun club or grassroots
pro-rights group.

        Work closely with the candidate's campaign manager, since the
manager knows best where scarce resources need to be applied.
Moreover, going off on your own jag, without coordinating with the
campaign, could backfire, and harm the candidate.

        If your group will, in addition to time and toil, also contribute
money to the campaign, check out what regulations apply. For example,
federal law covers contributions to campaigns for President, US
Senate, and US House of Representatives, and imposes some limits on
donations by organizations. At the same time, organizations have great
freedom to put their money into ``independent expenditures.'' Instead of
giving money to a candidate, the organization spends its money on its
own advertising or other projects on behalf of the candidate. To check
out the rules of play, call the Federal Election Commission's
toll-free question service, at 800-424-9530 for any question involving
federal election law. For state races, the Secretary of State's office
in your capital city will usually have information.

        Pro-rights candidates may be interested in doing a mailing to your
organization's members. One way to help the candidate is to pay for
the postage for the mailing yourself.

        In order to preserve your members' privacy, don't give the
campaign the actual computer database of your members. Instead, on
your own equipment, run a set of adhesive mailing labels for the
campaign to use.

        One of the most useful things you can do in the months before an
election is to publish a voter's guide listing how local elected
officials have voted on gun control issues. The voter's guide can also
include information about primary and general election dates, and how
to register to vote. The NRA and Gun Owners of America both send
questionnaires to most candidates, so you may want to work with those
organizations, and publicize the ratings they give.

        If you compile your own ratings, be extremely careful in recording
pro and con votes. Do not rely on memory; get official records or
newspaper reports for which way the legislator voted. Mistakenly
giving a pro-rights legislator only an 80% rating because you made an
error about he voted on a bill will infuriate the legislator, and may
cost you an ally.

        When deciding which candidates to endorse, you might want to
invite them to individual endorsement conferences, to meet with you
and two or three of the group's most articulate people. These informal
conferences can take place at the candidate's headquarters, or a local
restaurant, or any other mutually convenient location. The same rules
of promptness and preparation that apply for any meeting with elected
officials (chapter 21) apply here too.

        At the endorsement conference, you'll have the candidate's
attention in a way that you may not have again for quite awhile; right
now, he wants your support to help get him elected. The conference can
be educational for both you and the candidate.

        Offer to write a position paper about the right to bear arms for
the candidate. The position paper serves to put in print all those
good things the candidate said to you at the endorsement conference;
the position paper thereby helps solidify the candidate's commitment,
and gives you an anchor to remind him of his pro-gun promises once he
gets elected.

        In addition, the process of reviewing the draft position paper
helps the candidate make up his own mind about the gun issue, and to
understand which particular questions involving guns are most
important to gun owners.

        Write the position paper as an outreach document-- with a positive
approach that will sound reasonable to voters who don't know much
about guns. At the same time, include explicit positions on the topics
that are important to you.

        Try as hard as you can to endorse candidates of various parties.
While the Republican Party is generally perceived as more pro-gun than
the Democratic Party, there are plenty of pro-gun Democrats. If your
group only endorses Republicans, you may be seen as a captive of the
Republicans--and be taken for granted by the Republicans, and ignored
by the Democrats.

        If both the Republican and Democratic candidates are anti-gun,
consider endorsing the Libertarian candidate.

        In your first couple or three election cycles, don't feel
compelled to get involved in every race. Focus on a few races where
your limited resources can have the greatest impact. In general, the
smaller the race, the more of a difference a local group can make.

        At whatever level you choose to get involved, it is very important
that you roll up your sleeves for pro-gun candidates. The US House and
the Senate are both closely balanced between pro and anti forces. A
couple narrow elections could make the difference between the right to
bear arms, and the beginning of the end of civilian gun ownership.

24. Testifying before Legislative Committees

``THOSE WHO WON OUR INDEPENDENCE BY REVOLUTION WERE NOT COWARDS. THEY
DID NOT FEAR POLITICAL CHANGE. THEY DID NOT EXALT ORDER AT THE COST OF
LIBERTY.'' Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Whitney v. California
(1927).

        Testifying before a legislative committee is probably the most
dangerous thing a pro-rights activist can do. If you write letter to a
legislator that's not very good, little harm is done; a bad letter is
simply a missed opportunity to do good. In contrast, a bad witness
before a legislative committee can single-handedly destroy months of
effort by thousands of activists.

        Bad testimony is like a tank crew member pulling a grenade pin--and
dropping the grenade in his own tank! The good guys suffer all the
damage. So here are some tips to keep your testimony from causing
friendly fire fatalities.

Should You Testify?

        First, find out whether you can or should testify at all. At all
Congressional hearings, and at some state legislative and city council
hearings, there is simply no room for a citizen witness. The
legislators limit testimony to a few pre-selected people.

        At other hearings, the committee may only have time to hear from a
half-dozen witnesses (or less) on a particular bill. And at still
other hearings, the committee may take the time to listen to every
citizen who wants to say something.

        Before deciding to testify, call NRA headquarters and talk with
your state liaison, or call your state shooting association or other
local pro-gun group. They can tell you how the hearing will be
structured, and if the committee can accommodate citizen witnesses.

        At a hearing where only a few pre-selected people will be heard,
you can still help by showing up with a written statement (more on
that below), and asking the committee clerk to include your statement
in the record. The tactic is particularly effective if you can find a
friendly legislator who will call attention to it. She might, for
example, say, ``Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into the record the
written statement of Mr. Fred Goodguy. Mr. Goodguy is strongly opposed
to the bill. May his statement be entered into the record?''

        If you do testify, remember that there is only one reason to
testify: winning. Your objective is to convince a legislative body to
take a pro-rights vote, or at least to modify a bill in a pro-rights
direction. The purpose of testifying is not to get your picture in the
paper, nor is the purpose to make yourself happy. Gun-owners who put
their egos aside help kill bad legislation. Gun-owners who testify to
feed their egos make themselves happy, get their pictures in the
paper, and help pass bad legislation.

Preparation

        Like it or not, how you testify may be more important that what
you testify about. So dress in a business suit. If you don't own one,
at least wear a jacket and tie. Women should also dress
conservatively.

        Whenever you're doing anything that involves dealing with public,
including testifying, never wear hunting orange or similar
paraphernalia. Orange clothes increases the wearer's chances of
getting on TV, but mainly because he looks stupid, sort of like the
hunter that Johnny Carson portrayed on the ``Tonight Show.''

        Try to arrive at least a half-hour early, so you can get a seat,
and coordinate with the rest of the pro-rights folks there. Quite
often there will be a local gun rights leader serving as an informal
coordinator of the witnesses. If there is such a coordinator, seek him
out, introduce yourself, and follow his advice.

        When you get to the hearing room, be aware that there is already a
waiting period in effect, and it applies to you. Hearings often start
late and run overtime. Be ready to wait a long time before it's your
turn.

        When you're in the audience, waiting for your turn to testify, be
quiet and respectful. Do not call out or say anything rude when
opposing witnesses speak. Legislators hate such rudeness, and the
press may well make you look like the bad guys.

During Testimony

        Be consistently polite and respectful. If a legislator treats you
rudely, respond politely. Honey catches more flies than vinegar, and
some of the other legislators may appreciate your mature response to
their obnoxious colleague. Besides, the legislator may not actually be
hostile, but may just be trying to make up her own mind by asking you
tough questions.

        If you feel yourself getting hot under the collar, take a few
seconds for couple deep breaths and drink of water.

        Other legislators, rather than being hostile, may strike you as
stupid, and keep asking you the same question, thereby indicating that
they didn't understand your previous answers. Don't get frustrated.
Patiently answer the question again, perhaps with different phrasing.
The other legislators in the room will probably understand, even if
the one legislator never does.

        Address the legislators with appropriate titles, such as ``Madame
Chairperson'' or ``Mister Chairman'' or ``Senator'' or ``Representative
Jones.'' If you're not sure of what title to use, ``Sir'' and ``Ma'am''
work fine.

        Remember that the anti-gun lobby thrives on promoting hysteria,
and portraying pro-rights citizens as unstable nuts who can't be
trusted with guns. Your job when testifying is to defuse the issue, to
calm things down, and to demonstrate by your every act that gun-owners
are extremely mature and patient. Let the legislators see what good
citizens gun owners really are.

        Of course a witness can scream at the legislators that they're a
bunch of Communist butchers, and he may well get some media attention.
Anyone can get his picture in paper for pulling his pants down in
public. But such histrionics help the gun prohibitionists.

        Even if you are positive that the committee is biased against you,
don't attack the committee; you'll simply alienate them further.

        In the same vein, lay off personal attacks on other opponents.
True, the bureaucrat testifying in favor of gun control may be
small-minded enemy of freedom, but now isn't the time to say so.
Confine yourself to factual evidence disproving his statements.

        If there is a time limit on your testimony, obey it, even if an
anti-gun windbag who testified before you ran overtime. Show that our
sides plays by the rules.

        The time limits that apply to regular folks generally aren't
enforced against government officials who are testifying. They can--and
do--pontificate as long as they want. Don't waste your energy getting
upset about it.

        One way to multiply your impact before the committee is to
demonstrate that you are speaking on behalf of other ordinary
citizens. Maybe you can present the committee with a petition signed
by 20 of your friends indicating that they support the same proposal
you are testifying to support. Even better, they could write short
letters (maybe with your help) for you to offer to the committee.
Present the evidence of citizen support with something like ``Mister
Chairman, before I begin I would like to present you a petition from
25 other residents of Fenario who are unable to attend this hearing,
but who wanted to let the Committee know of their strong support for
House Bill 649.''

Substance

        At the very beginning, state who you are, where you're from, who
you're representing (if anyone else), and your position on the bill:
``Thank Madame Chairwoman for this opportunity to testify. My name is
Jack Straw. I live at 2201 Terrapin Lane, in Bailiwick. I am here on
behalf of my local community organization, the Southern Bailwick
Neighborhood Association. Madame Chairwoman, we strongly support House
Bill 2285 for the following reasons.''

        With a good personal appearance, you've cleared the way for
legislators to listen to what you have to say. For substance, the key
rule is this: Be specific. Quotations from James Madison, or
soliloquies about how gun control never works are a waste of time.
Most legislators already believe in a general right to bear arms; and
the legislators that don't can't be persuaded by rational argument.

        What the legislators need is not general philosophy, but specific
reasons to vote for or against a particular bill. So if they're
hearing a bill about a semiautomatic prohibition, they need to hear
about why a semiautomatic ban would be bad. If you're a target
shooter, you could explain how you use semis in competition. If you
have a semi for home defense, explain why it makes a superior defense
gun in many situations. If you're well acquainted with firearms
technology, explain how a semi fires at the same rate as a pump action
shotgun, not at the same rate as a machine gun. If you're up to speed
on gun policy issues, detail how the semiautomatic prohibition in
California failed.

        Likewise, if you're talking about a gun registration bill, talk
about the specifics of registration. Explain how the twenty dollar
registration fee would work a hardship on some gun owners. Point to
specific examples in other states of how anti-gun police chiefs have
twisted registration laws to turn them into gun bans. Let the
legislators know about other legislatures which have rejected
registration.

        Remember that legislators are generalists, not specialists. They
may not know the difference between a rifle and a shotgun. They may
have no idea of how severe gun control laws already are. (One New York
City Councilman thought that guns could be instantly purchased over
the counter in his city.) Some of them have never touched a gun in
their lives.

        So explain yourself in a non-technical straightforward manner that
doesn't assume a lot of prior knowledge on your listeners' part.

        Anecdotes which illustrate broad points are very useful. If you're
opposed to a bill creating a statewide handgun waiting period, tell
the committee about how the city-level waiting period in your hometown
is administered; while the city law specifies a 5 day wait, the police
often take a month to approve gun purchases. You might tell the story
of a woman you know who, after her house was burglarized, wanted to
buy a handgun in case the burglars came back; but because of the way
the waiting period really works, she couldn't pick up her handgun for
five weeks.

        Make sure that your anecdotes (like everything else you say) can
be presented quickly, without extraneous detail, and that you can come
to point before the committee gets bored.

        Unless you are going to tell a story about something that happened
to you, your own personal background should not account for more than
a sentence or two.

        Name-dropping and similar puffery are verboten. The committee will
think less of you, not more, if you drop lines like, ``I was discussing
this bill yesterday with my high school classmate, Mr. Moneybags, who
owns three major factories outside of town.''

        When challenging factual assertions made by previous witnesses or
committee members, confine yourself to explaining the truth, without
calling the other person a liar. Your factual arguments will be
strongest if you can cite a source of evidence: ``A few minutes ago,
one of the witnesses claimed that semiautomatics are the `weapon of
choice of criminals.' That statement's not entirely accurate. Even in
the big high-crime cities such as New York City, or Los Angeles, the
police records show that only about 1% of guns seized from criminals
are so-called `assault weapons.'''

        Try to avoid repeating points made by previous speakers, unless
you've got something new with which to elaborate the point. If by the
time the committee gets to you, prior speakers have already said
everything you planned to say, it's alright to tell the committee ``I
support House Bill 2285. The previous witnesses have already made all
the points I was going to make, so I'd simply like to ask you to
include my written statement in the record, and to enact this
important, life-saving legislation.''

        Visual aids and props, if handling correctly, can be quite
effective. In a bill to ban ``assault weapons'' you could take a picture
of an AKS rifle, and a Remington rifle, enlarge the pictures, mount
the pictures on stiff cardboard, and explain to the committee that
while the two guns look very different, their internal mechanisms and
rate of fire are just the same.

        Or, you could use your home computer to make a graph showing how
gun crime has increased in states with waiting periods. During your
oral presentation, you could give the committee members their own copy
of the graph, and explain its significance. (When you hand anything to
the committee, you will almost always do so by handing multiple copies
to the Sergeant-at-Arms, who will then distribute your material to the
committee.)

        In conclusion, thank the committee for the opportunity to express
your position, and quickly summarize the position: ``Thank your for the
opportunity to testify on the carrying of handguns by licensed,
trained citizens. House Bill 2285 will start saving lives and
preventing crime the day it is enacted.''

Written Statements

        If you have time, prepare a written statement to supply to the
committee. It's a good way to show you're serious, and will help you
prepare your oral remarks.

        Bring a clean, typed copy of your testimony for every member on
the panel, five extra copies for committee staff, five extra copies
for the media, and five more extra copies for unexpected
circumstances.

        The written statement can go into much more detail than you can
cover in the few minutes that you may be allotted for an oral
statement. So when making your oral statement, summarize the important
points from the written statement. Don't read from the written
statement. Listening to someone read aloud from a prepared text is
boring. You may notice that some of the public officials who spoke
before you were reading word-for-word from a prepared text. They're no
role model for you; the committee was probably bored with them.

        The statement itself should contain your name and address at the
top, along with the bill number or topic of the committee hearing. If
you're representing a group, the fact should also be noted in the
heading. (As we mentioned above, there's no point in mentioning that
you represent a gun group. It's more effective if you can arrange to
appear on behalf of another organization, such as your church, office,
or community organization.)

Other Legislators

        Since you've gone to all the work of preparing a good written
statement, and driving to the capitol, take the opportunity to garner
some influence with other legislators. If your own district's
representative isn't on the committee, drop by her office, ask for the
legislative assistant who deals with the right to bear arms issue, and
give the assistant a copy of your testimony. If you're lucky, the
assistant (or maybe even the legislator) may have a couple minutes to
chat with you. (See chapter 21, on meetings with legislators and
staff.)

        Follow up by writing a letter to your home-district
representative. Enclose a copy of your testimony (``In case you have
any use for a duplicate copy...''). Mention that the witnesses who
appeared before the committee overwhelmingly supported the pro-rights
position (which will almost always be the case, unless the committee
chair decides only to hear from certain witnesses). And offer to
supply any additional information the legislator would like help
decide about the issue.

Media Attention

        If you do testify, consider notifying your hometown media, and
providing them with a copy of your statement. If you come from a small
town, the local weekly might contemplate doing a couple paragraphs on
your testimony in the state capital 200 miles away. Even if the paper
doesn't do a brief story on the testimony, having been alerted that
local people are interested in the gun rights issue, the paper may pay
a little more attention to it in the future.

        A media release is only worth doing if you come from a fairly
small area. The New York Times will not care that you, a resident of
Brooklyn, testified before the New York state legislature.

Citizen Hearings

        In rare cases, citizens may be entirely shut out of public
hearings. For instance, in 1989, the Cleveland City Council passed a
semi-auto ban without even publishing the notice of the proposed law
on the Council calendar. The Council's deliberate violation of the
open meetings law was a conscious tactic to avoid pressure from
pro-rights citizens. When citizens are shut out in a blatantly unfair
manner, consider holding your own ``Citizen Hearings.''

        Such hearings will be challenging to pull off, and you should
therefore work closely with your NRA State Liaison. The hearings work
like normal legislative hearings, except that they're run by regular
folks, rather than politicians.

        Hold the hearings at a friendly forum (such as a Veterans of
Foreign Wars meeting hall). Invite sympathetic elected officials or
candidates to attend, and to serve on the panel if they wish.

        Unlike your governmental counterparts, be fair, and allow all
points of view to be expressed by anyone who wants to make a
statement.

        Inform the media (see chapter 31, press releases), and get as many
pro-rights folks to attend as possible.

        Hire a court reporter to record and print a transcript of the
meeting. Send copies of the full hearing transcript, a one-page
summary of the highlights, and a cover letter to all relevant
governmental officials. Explain how the official hearing excluded the
views of ordinary citizens, and how the Citizen Hearing was designed
to let the legislators know how ordinary people feel about the issue.

        The meeting is a good chance to mobilize pro-gun people. Collect
the names and addresses of attendees on a sign-in sheet, and give
attendees leaflets detailing further actions they can take.

PART III

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS:

WORKING WITH THE GUN GROUPS

        Every activist should join with fellow activists by participating
in pro-rights organizations. At the least, everyone should become a
due-paying member of the National Rifle Association. At the most,
perhaps you'll become the founder of your own local pro-rights group.

        This part of the book goes through the numerous pro-rights groups
that would be delighted to have your help, and also offers extensive
advice about how to form your own organization.

        25. Join the National Rifle Association

``AS LIFE IS ACTION AND PASSION, IT IS REQUIRED OF MAN THAT HE SHOULD
SHARE THE PASSION AND ACTION OF HIS TIME, AT THE PERIL OF BEING JUDGED
NOT TO HAVE LIVED.'' Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

        There's a reason that the establishment media says so many vicious
things about the National Rifle Association: the NRA works.

        The anti-gun lobby desperately hopes you don't join. In fact,
Handgun Control, Inc. has begun ``Operation Alienate'' specifically
designed to keep gun owners out of the NRA. The simple act of joining
the NRA repudiates Sarah Brady's claim that she, and not the NRA, best
represents the opinions of American gunowners.

        The best way to join is with a three or five year membership. You
get a discount on the annual rate, and NRA doesn't have to spend money
sending you renewal notices. Even better, join as a life member. You
can spread the payments out in quarterly installments over several
years.

        Not only does the NRA need your membership, it needs you to
recruit other members, including your spouse, children, relatives,
hunting buddies, friends who carry for protection, co-workers, and
everybody else.

        The Georgia State Shooting Association takes a sophisticated
approach that other large groups of local activists might consider.
The GSSA does computer cross matches of registered voters, handgun
carry license holders, hunting license holders, and NRA members. If
somebody fits into all of the three first categories, but not the
fourth (NRA membership), the GSSA sends a representative to the
person's house to politely ask if he or she would like to support
their rights by joining the NRA.

New NRA Address

        Around November of 1993, the NRA will be moving into new
headquarters at 11250 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, Virginia 22030. As
this book goes to print, no phone number is available. The area code
is (703).

        The NRA's old headquarters will remain open for at least a year,
as a forwarding office. That address is 1600 Rhode Island Ave. NW,
Washington, DC 20036. Telephone (202) 828-6000.

        Because of the office move, we can't supply you with phone numbers
for particular NRA offices, such as the Research and Education
division. But if you call the old Washington phone number, they'll be
able to give you the new phone numbers as soon as they become
available.

26. Support the Second Amendment Foundation

        ``LET US CONTEMPLATE OUR FOREFATHERS, AND POSTERITY, AND
RESOLVE TO MAINTAIN THE RIGHTS BEQUEATHED TO US FROM THE FORMER, FOR
THE SAKE OF THE LATTER. THE NECESSITY OF THE TIMES, MORE THAN EVER,
CALLS FOR OUR UTMOST CIRCUMSPECTION, DELIBERATION, FORTITUDE, AND
PERSEVERANCE. LET US REMEMBER THAT `IF WE SUFFER TAMELY A LAWLESS
ATTACK UPON OUR LIBERTY, WE ENCOURAGE IT, AND INVOLVE OTHERS IN OUR
DOOM.' IT IS A VERY SERIOUS CONSIDERATION...THAT MILLIONS YET UNBORN
MAY BE THE MISERABLE SHARERS OF THE EVENT.'' Samuel Adams, speech in
Boston, 1771.

        The Second Amendment Foundation was founded in 1974 and is
dedicated to promoting a better understanding of the constitutional
right to keep and bear arms. To that end, the Foundation carries on
many educational and legal action programs designed to inform the
public about the legal, social and academic aspects of the gun control
debate. SAF publishes or distributes over 30 different books and
research reports covering all issue related to the Second Amendment
and gun control. A full time staff travels the country taking part in
meetings, conventions and shows where accurate information about gun
rights can be collected and distributed.

        The Foundation defends the rights of law-abiding gun owners
through legal challenges of anti-gun laws at the local, state and
national levels. SAF has taken an active part in cases which have
defined the boundaries of gun rights for millions of Americans. SAF
retains some of the most respected legal scholars in the nation to
write amicus briefs, file lawsuits, and conduct negotiations with
state and local lawmakers. The Foundation also took part in the first
ever legal symposium on the Second Amendment which brought together
America's leading legal scholars on the subject of gun rights and the
Constitution.

        In an average year, SAF staff members make more than 75 radio and
television appearances nationwide. SAF programming is carried on over
160 radio stations on three national radio networks. Public service
announcements and advertising are heard by a market of over 100
million people.

        In addition, SAF publishes several highly respected periodicals.
Gun Week newspaper, which has been in existence since 1966, is a
weekly publication that provides the most up to date news and
information about what is happening to your gun rights across the
country. (For more about Gun Week see chapter 5.) Since 1989 SAF has
also published Women & Guns magazine, the only pro-gun magazine
written by women, edited by women and designed to reflect women's
issues. In September 1991 SAF made Women & Guns available on
newsstands nationwide.

        Membership dues are only $15.00 per year, which entitles you to a
SAF membership card, a subscription to the SAF Reporter (the
Foundation's newsletter), as well as information about the right to
keep and bear arms throughout the year. Life membership is $100. SAF
is organized under Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3) and as a result all
membership dues and contributions are tax deductible. Contact the
Second Amendment Foundation, 12500 NE 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005.
1-206-454-7012.

27. Support the Citizens Committee for the

Right to Keep and Bear Arms

``TYRANNY, LIKE HELL, IS NOT EASILY CONQUERED: YET WE HAVE THIS
CONSOLATION WITHIN US, THAT THE HARDER THE CONFLICT, THE MORE GLORIOUS
THE TRIUMPH. WHAT WE OBTAIN TOO CHEAP, WE ESTEEM TOO LIGHTLY...IT
WOULD BE STRANGE INDEED IF SO CELESTIAL AN ARTICLE AS FREEDOM SHOULD
NOT BE HIGHLY RATED.'' Thomas Paine

        Since 1971 the Citizens Committee or the Right to Keep and Bear
Arms fought for the Constitutional rights of the American gun owner.
Started by ordinary citizens with an extraordinary commitment to
preserving the American tradition of lawful firearms ownership, CCRKBA
has battled for the gun rights we now enjoy. The premise that an armed
populace is more likely to be a free populace is one that goes back to
the American founding and has its roots in ancient Greek political
philosophy, and still rings true today.

        CCRKBA has come a long way in a short time. What was started by a
couple a people with a few thousand dollars and a one-room office has
grown steadily over the years. Today the CCRKBA has a staff of over 50
people with offices on both coasts and a budget of over $2.5 million.
A small group of dedicated individuals has become an organization with
over 600,000 members and supporters nationwide.

        On Capitol Hill, the Washington, DC public affairs staff works
year round with national politicians and pro-gun groups. CCRKBA has
initiated or assisted with passage of several of the most important
pieces of pro-gun legislation including the Firearm Owners Protection
Act. The CCRKBA National Advisory Committee has over 100 elected
representatives, authors and statesmen.

        The Bellevue, Washington office works full time at coordinating
grass-roots lobbying in state legislatures. Satellite offices in other
states give the CCRKBA an on-site presence to fight in the trenches
where needed. With the help of affiliated local organizations, the
Committee has defeated anti-gun legislation in states and localities
across the nation. Due to the grass-roots orientation of the
Committee, a great deal of time is spent informing members of ways
they can actively participate in the fight to retain our freedoms.

        CCRKBA video and audio presentations have been aired in more than
200 cities. They have been transmitted on numerous cable systems
including The Nashville Network, CNN, CBN, USA, and ESPN. CCRKBA also
produces  literature and other materials on topics related to firearm
rights and political action. Staff members travel year-round
throughout the country promoting our rights as gun owners. CCRKBA
appears at seminars and conferences, schools and guns shows, and on
television and radio programs.

        Memberships are $15.00 per year, which entitles you to an official
membership card, action alerts which keep you informed on what you can
do to stop anti-gun legislation, bumper stickers, access to the
Speakers Bureau composed of outstanding pro-gun experts, access to the
latest pro-gun books, posters, placards, hats, and other items, and
periodic membership surveys that aid in determining CCRKBA policy.
Life memberships are available for $150. To join the Citizens
Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms write to the Membership
Department, CCRKBA, 12500 NE 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005 or call
1-206-454-4911.

28. Think Globally, Act Locally

``AND FOR THE SUPPORT OF THIS DECLARATION, WITH A FIRM RELIANCE ON THE
PROTECTION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, WE MUTUALLY PLEDGE TO EACH OTHER OUR
LIVES, OUR FORTUNES, AND OUR SACRED HONOUR.'' The Declaration of
Independence.

        When geese fly south for the winter, they adopt a ``V'' formation.
As each bird flaps, he creates an uplift for the bird immediately
behind. Consequently, by flying together in a V, the flock gets at
least a 71% greater range than if the birds flew individually.

        The hardest-working goose is the one at the front of the V, who
doesn't get the benefit of an uplift from following anyone. When the
lead goose gets tired, he drops back, and lets another goose take the
lead.

        The principles that work for geese work for people too. Working in
a group often helps you achieve much more than you could just by
yourself. And when people in a group share hard jobs, everyone remains
fresher for the long haul.

        Local gun issues affect far more than their locality. If bad gun
controls are enacted at the local level, it builds pressure on
Congress to make gun control national. As Sarah Brady points out,
state and local anti-gun laws are the ``building blocks'' for severe
national controls.

        Local groups fight the day-to-day battles on everything from
supporting pro-rights legislation in the state legislature to making
sure that shooting ranges aren't shut down by zoning laws.

        If there's no group in your area, contact one of the existing
groups listed below, and find out about setting up a local chapter.

        Some of the organizations below have telephone hotlines to keep
you up-to-date on developing legislation and other issues.

        The addresses and phone numbers listed below are the most recent
ones available to us, but some will have undoubtedly changed by the
time you read this. Groups are listed by state.

Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association. PO Box 40962, Mesa, AZ
85274-0962.

FACT--Firearms Action Committee, Tucson, PO Box 27321, Tucson, AZ
85726.

Bay Area Professionals for Firearms Safety and Education. 101 First
Street, Suite 131, Los Altos, CA 94022. (408) 865-1720.

Californians Against Corruption. 115 W. California Blvd., Suite 225,
Pasadena CA 91105. These folks made a special point of exposing the
corrupt record of California Assembly Majority Leader Mike Roos, a
notorious anti-gunner and author of the infamous ``Roberti-Roos Assault
Weapon Ban.'' After a couple years of pressure, Roos was forced to
retire from the Assembly to take a non-elective job in Los Angeles
government. Californians Against Corruption now aims its fire at other
enemies of the Second Amendment, of whom there are plenty in
California.

California Organization for Public Safety (C.O.P.S.). 1451 South
Rimpau Ave., Suite 214, Corona, CA 91719. (714) 279-9953. Fax (714)
279-1185. Mr. Mike McNulty. Among COPS  many good works has been
exposing California government documents which demonstrate that the
state's ``assault weapon'' has been a fraud from its inception;
California government officials knew then, and know now, that the guns
are almost never used in violent crime.

California Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. 12062 Valley View St.,
Suite 107 Garden Grove CA 92645. This is California's NRA affiliate;
unlike the NRA affiliates in some other states, the CRPA is very
active in politics, and publishes a lengthy newsletter with
legislative updates.

California NRA Office. The NRA is organizing grassroots City Chapters
in several California cities. To get involved, call the NRA Grassroots
Coordinator, at (916) 446-2455.

Citizens For a Better Stockton, 6333 Pacific Ave., Suite 335,
Stockton, CA 95207. (209) 478-9633. Mr. Dale Thurston.

Committee to Enforce the Second Amendment. PO Box 94, Long Beach, CA
90801-0094. Mr. Neil Schulman.

Firearms Education Institute. Box 2193 El Segundo, CA 90245. Mr.
Michael Robbins.

Firearms Freedom Society. 7818 Stewart & Gray Road, #209, Downey, CA
90241.

Gun Owners ACTION Committee. 862 Granite Circle, Anaheim, CA 92806.
These folks are among the hardest-working activists in all of
California. They garnered national publicity in late 1990 by
successfully urging Californians to disobey the state's registration
law for so-called ``assault weapons.'' Leader T.J. Johnson burned a
registration card for the television cameras, just as Vietnam
protesters had burned their draft cards. They also do a fine
newsletter, We The People. Hotline (714) 871-4515.

Gun Owners of California. 3440 Viking Drive, # 106, Sacramento, CA
95827. (916) 361-3109. The GOC is one of the largest and oldest
activist groups in California, with 40,000 contributors. They work
especially effectively in state legislative races, although they
sometimes let other social issues, such as abortion, get in the way of
right to bear arms activism.

Quicksilver Coalition. PO Box 28873, San Jose, CA 95159. Mr. Jeff
Klopotic.

Firearms Coalition of Colorado. PO Box 1454, Englewood, CO 80150-1454.
Hotline: (303) 369-GUNS. A very strong grassroots organization.

Colorado State Shooting Association, PO Box 10425, Colorado Springs,
CO 80932. Formerly a sleepy domain of club shooters, now revitalized
into an active pro-rights, pro-safety association.

Pro Second Amendment Committee. PO Box 40191, Grand Junction, Colorado
81504. (303) 464-5282.

Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen, PO Box 2506, CT 06146. (203)
245-8076; fax (203) 245-1957; legislative hotline (203) 722-3030.
Publishes the monthly Hook n' Bullet.

Delaware State Sportsmen's Association. PO Box 1786, Wilmington, DL
19899.

Unified Sportsmen of Florida, PO Box 6565, Tallahassee, FL 32314.
(904) 222-9518. USF's Marion Hammer is perhaps the most outstanding
state lobbyist for our cause in all fifty states. Because many trends
start in Florida, and because the balance of power in the legislature
is never stable, USF's work in Florida keeps us all safer nationally.
USF secured passage of the landmark legislation allowing citizens to
obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon for self-defense, after a
background check. The trend USF started in Florida is now spreading
nationwide.

Georgia State Shooting Association, P.O. Box 93345, Atlanta, GA 30318.
Telephone: (404) 874-6805. The group publishes the GSSA Sentinel. An
effective group in one of the key battleground states.

(Hawaii) Valley Isle Sport Shooters. P.O. Box 216, Puunene, HI 96784.

Illinois Informed Gun Owners, PO Box 9116, Downers Grove, IL
60515-9116.

Illinois State Rifle Association, PO Box 27, Kankakee, IL 60901.

Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association, PO Box 1322, Glen Burnie,
MD 21061. Mr. Fred Griiser. An extremely hard-working and powerful
state organization.

Maryland Licensed Firearms Dealers Association, Inc., 2201 Victor
Court, Silver Spring, MD 20906. (301) 942-3329; fax (301) 942-7946.
Many gun dealers in Maryland--unlike their counterparts in some other
states--understand that unless they get actively involved in public
affairs, their business will be constricted and regulated until it
dies.

Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts. 14 Main St., Box 272,
Southboro, MA 01772. (508) 481-5112. How is it that in Massachusetts,
where three-term Governor Dukakis supported gun prohibition, not a
single major new statewide gun law has been enacted since 1976? The
Gun Owners Action League worked harder to preserve freedom than
Dukakis did to restrict freedom. GOAL makes a major effort to
encourage gun owners to register to vote, a strategy which should be
imitated by pro-rights groups in other states. The group makes
available to its members a Massachusetts legislative directory,
providing phone numbers and addresses for the whole state legislature.
(Another good idea for other groups to imitate.) GOAL also runs the
GOAL Foundation, which promotes firearms safety, and to which you can
make tax deductible contributions.

Motor City Sportsman's Association. PO Box 21383 Detroit MI 48221.
Motor City's feisty General Laney has been one of Michigan's
longest-standing supporters of civil rights.

Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance of Minnesota. PO Box 131254, St.
Paul, MN 55113. (612) 293-1269.

Minnesota Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. 4890 Hanson
Road, Shoreview, MN 55126.

Western Missouri Shooters' Alliance. 2900 Bedford Court, Blue Springs,
MO 64015. Also, PO Box 11144, Kansas City, MO 64119. Hotline: (816)
444-0228. Answering machines/phone lines (816) 229-5920, (816)
597-3533, (314) 567-2081, (314) 434-7322. Very involved in political
action, this group publishes a good monthly newsletter, The Bullet.
The Alliance is a key leader in the fight for laws allowing licensed,
trained citizens to carry concealed firearms.

Missouri Citizens for Civil Liberties. PO Box 9140, Richmond Heights,
MO 63117. Mr. John Ross.

Gun Owners of New Hampshire, RFD #1 Box 517, Andover, NH 03216. (603)
225-4664. A hard-working group which, thanks to its influence in the
New Hampshire presidential primary, has a major national impact.
Publishes the monthly Firearms and Freedom.

Coalition of New Jersey Sportsmen. PO Box 423, Oakhurst NJ 07753.
(201) 389-3355; (908) 889-5931. Ms. Barbara Nappan. Thanks to Governor
Jim Florio's plans to confiscate semi-automatics, New Jersey went from
the state with the weakest pro-rights movement to the strongest.
During the 1991 legislative elections, the Coalition played a major
role in ousting scores of anti-rights legislators.

Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs. P.O. Box 66,
Highland Lakes, NJ 07422. (201) 764-2433; (201) 661-0634. Like the
Coalition of New Jersey Sportsmen, these folks are very involved in
turning New Jersey around.

Citizens for Responsible Gun Ownership. Akron, OH. (216) 773-5701. Mr.
Ken Zeigler.

Firearms Fact Committee. Cincinnati, OH. (513) 474-6958. Mr. Bob
Eickelberger.

Land of Legend Rifle & Pistol Club. Newark, OH. Mr. & Mrs. Bob &
Kathryn Dennis. (614) 345-2860.

Lorain County Firearms Defense Association. (216) 327-6655. Mr. Chris
Crobaugh.

Miami Valley Association for Responsible Legislation. Dayton, OH.
(513) 294-6623. Mr. Mike Chaves.

Ohio Constitution Defense Council. 12900 Triskett Road, Cleveland, OH
44111. Publishes the quarterly Liberty Bell. Umbrella organization for
the local Ohio groups.

Ohio Rifle & Pistol Association. (513) 293-6194. Mr. Frank Fecke.

People's Rights Organization, PO Box 2652, Columbus, OH 43216;
614-268-0122. Dues $12. An effective grassroots organization, with the
common sense to realize that an assault on any part on the Bill of
Rights is an assault on all of it.

Citizens Safety Committee, Multnomah County. PO 19448 Portland, OR
97219. (503) 283-4368.

Pennsylvania NRA office. 301 South Allen St., #103, State College, PA
16801. (814) 234-2222. Mr. Alan Krug.

Keystone Second Amendment Association. PO Box 361, Curwensville, PA
16833. (814) 236 1013. Mr. Don Boal. One of the most informative
monthly newsletters published by any local group, chock full of
interesting information, and marred only by a sometimes overly
strident attitude.

Americans Against Gun Control. PO Box 1564, Rapid City, SD 57709. Mr.
Bill Wells.

Texas State Rifle Association, Texas State Rifle Association, PO Box
710549, Dallas, TX 75731. (800) 876-8772 and (512) 288-6608. Fax (512)
288-1008. Legislative hotline (512) 288-3242. The TSRA is the local
branch of the NRA. This hardworking group has its hands full with all
the anti-gun laws being proposed in the Texas legislature. They've
been publishing the TSRA Sportsman for over 20 years. The group also
offers TSRA Long Distance, a TSRA Mastercard, and dental insurance.
(Other groups take note!)

North Texas Arms Rights Coalition (NTARC). POB 28186 Dallas, TX
75228-0186. (214) 270-4068. Mr. Wayne Burnham.

Wisconsin Pro-Gun Movement, PO Box 51, Hales Corners, WI 53130. (414)
425-5577 phone/fax.

Wyoming Arms Rights Coalition. PO Box 2571, Gillette, WY 82717-2571

29. Other National Groups

``LIBERTY DOES NOT CONSIST IN MERE GENERAL DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF
MEN. IT CONSISTS IN THE TRANSLATION OF THOSE DECLARATIONS INTO
DEFINITE ACTION.'' Woodrow Wilson, speech, Philadelphia, July 4, 1914.

        We've already told you to join a whole bunch of organizations.
Here are some more national groups that do good work:

American Pistol and Rifle Association. Box USA, Benton, TN 37307.
(514) 644-0440. Mr. Ron Boylan.

Firearms Coalition, PO Box 6537, Silver Spring MD 20906.  This is
outfit is run by Neal Knox, one of the most important pro-gun leaders
in American history. A former national shooting champion, Neal enjoys
a keen understanding of not only the politics of gun control, but also
the pleasures of shooting.

        As head of the Firearms Coalition, Knox does yeoman work for gun
rights. He authors excellent columns for Guns & Ammo, Shotgun News,
and other publications. He also does extensive lobbying. Like CCRKBA's
lobbyist John Snyder, he is particularly effective at keeping the
pro-gun stalwarts energized and unified. He runs an excellent
telephone hotline providing constant updates on the battles in
Washington and across the country (301-871-3006).

        In 1990 and 1991, Neal led insurgent slates of candidates for NRA
Board of Directors. Most of Neal's slate, including Neal himself, were
elected, providing the NRA Board with the most pro-rights composition
it has had in years.

        Unlike some avid shootists, Neal understands that the assault on
``bad'' guns like small handguns or semiautomatics with plastic stocks
is only a warm-up for the assault on all guns.

Gun Owners of America. 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA
22151. (703) 321-8585. Fax (703) 321-8408. GOA is the third-largest
national pro-gun lobby, after NRA/ILA and the Citizens Committee for
the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. GOA generally takes an uncompromising
stance on gun questions. While the hard-line stance can sometimes
cause problems, GOA provided a clear voice on behalf of the Second
Amendment in early 1989, when GOA President Larry Pratt, on behalf of
GOA's 100,000 members, spoke out immediately and forcefully against
restrictions on semiautomatic firearms.

International Paintball Players Association. PO Box 90051, Los Angeles
CA 90009. What does paintball have to do with firearms? Well, learning
how to run around the woods, avoid the enemy, and shoot accurately
under pressure sounds an awful lot like voluntary militia training.
That's one reason why anti-gun bureaucrats are determined to clamp
down on paintball. In New Jersey, the Attorney General even tried to
force people to get firearms licenses in order to buy a paint gun. (It
takes about four months to get a firearms license in New Jersey.) The
IPPA is headed by attorney Jessica Sparks, a persuasive advocate for
our cause. Like many paintballers, she started out with no interest in
the Second Amendment; but after playing paintball for a while, she
started to recognize the importance of the right to bear arms.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. (JPFO). Mr. Aaron
Zelman.  2872 S. Wentworth Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53207. JPFO's
membership magazine Maccabee is one the most interesting publications
of the smaller gun rights groups. Among JPFO's many interesting
publications are interviews with a survivor of the Nazi extermination
camps and with Armenian victims of Turkish genocide, who explain how
gun control helped the killers achieve their objectives. The JPFO
initials are appropriately evocative of the JFO initials of the Jewish
Fighting Organization which led the revolt against the Nazis in the
Warsaw ghetto during World War II. (For information about their book
Gun Control: Gateway to Tyranny, see chapter 1.)

Law Enforcement Alliance of America. Suite 421, 7700 Leesburg Pike,
Falls Church, VA 22043-2618. (703) 847-COPS. As more and more big-city
police chiefs push for gun control and gun prohibition, more and more
rank-and-file officers are fighting back. LEAA is a national
organization of police officers (civilians may also join) which pushes
for stronger laws aimed at criminals, and opposes restrictions on the
freedom of law-abiding citizens to own firearms.

National Firearms Association, PO Box 160038, Austin, TX 78716-0038.
The nation's major association for automatic firearms collectors.

National Foundation for Firearms Education, 440 Park Ave. South, NY,
NY 10016. Former head of Amnesty International USA Mark Benneson runs
this one. They focus on publicizing writing by folks like Jim Wright
and Paxton Quigley.

We Are Aware (Armed Women Against Rape and Endangerment), PO Box 255,
Maynard, MA 01754. This organization promotes self-defense by women,
and strongly supports a woman's right to choose to own and carry a gun
or Cap-Stun. They publish a quarterly newsletter.

30. Start Your Own Group

``DISPERSE YOU REBELS; DAMN YOU, THROW DOWN YOUR ARMS AND DISPERSE.''
British Major John Pitcairn's futile order to the American patriots at
Lexington, April 19, 1775.

        Starting a pro-rights group can be a wonderful experience; you'll
work hard, succeed sometimes, fail other times, and do your country a
tremendous service. But before you leap, it's important to take a hard
look, and realistically analyze what you want to do and what you can
do. Assess yourself, and whether you're ready to put the time and
emotional commitment into starting the group from scratch. While
organizing the group may be somewhat easier than founding your own
small business (you won't starve if the group flounders), you will
face many of the same enormous challenges.

        You must be prepared to handle the virtual certainty of failure.
Not the failure of the group as a whole, since it's likely that the
group will succeed, and will do some worthwhile projects. But along
the way, it is inevitable that you will run into blind alleys,
misguided projects, and more snafus than you imagined could happen at
once. Any human enterprise--especially one involving a lot of humans--is
bound to encounter all sorts of unexpected disasters. When setbacks
happen, take them in stride, learn from experience, and move on. If
you're not comfortable with taking chances and failing some of the
time, then you won't be able to create the opportunities to take
chances and succeed other times.

        Realistically assess how much time you can put into the
organization month after month.

        Set moderate goals you can reach. It's like an exercise program.
If you start off intent to do a 200 pushups a day, you may not meet
the goal, and may give up from discouragement. But if you start with
20 a day, and when 20 become easy you do 30 a day, and so on, then
after a while, you may be doing 300 pushups one-handed!

        Finally, be professional. Remember the importance of first
impressions. Dress neatly. Keep your appointments, start meetings on
time, mail out literature when you say you will.

        In building a group, follow-up is essential. Send thank you notes,
keep a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers of interested
people, and invite them to meetings. If a member puts in extraordinary
effort, let Alan know, and he'll send your member a certificate of
appreciation.

Name

        In general, it's better to be for something than against. So
consider a name that emphasizes what you're for (freedom) rather than
what you're against (gun control). Look at the list of local
organizations (chapter 28) for some examples of positive, upbeat
names.

Meetings

        Unless meetings are held in your own home, book your meeting rooms
at least four weeks ahead of time. A few days before the meeting, call
to reconfirm your reservation. If you always have meetings at the same
time and place (``2d Sunday of every month, at 7:30 p.m.''), then it's
easier for people to remember to attend.

        Gun clubs, apartment party rooms, libraries, schools, community
recreation centers, and churches are all good choices for a meeting
site. A private room in a restaurant is also possible, but any unless
the prices are very modest, some potential members may not attend
because their budgets are tight.

        In many urban areas, people don't want to drive all the way back
downtown for an evening meeting. So have the meeting at a convenient
suburban location in an area where you have a lot of active members.

        It's true that the members who live in suburbs on the other side
of town will have to drive even further than they would to a downtown
meeting. But if they were willing to drive downtown, they'll probably
be willing to drive ten minutes further. And in the suburb that's
hosting the meeting, you may get several more attendees who wouldn't
have showed up for something a long distance away.

        When the group is starting out (and this goes for booking rooms
for speeches too), get a room slightly smaller than you expect to
need. Fifteen people who show up in a room that can set a hundred may
feel that there aren't enough other people to make group participation
viable; fifteen people in a room built for twelve will feel that the
energy in the group is growing by leaps and bounds.

        The small rooms rule, like all the other rules in this book, is
not an absolute. If you're having a strategy meeting with ten key
volunteers, get a room that holds ten people, not seven.

        Show up early for meetings, and make sure that everything is in
working order. If the meeting is in your home, serve light
refreshments.

        Have plenty of free literature (see chapter 1) on hand.

        Supply name tags for meetings, and make sure to greet newcomers
with a handshake and a sincere smile. Introduce new people to the
veterans (or have everybody introduce themselves). Do everything you
can to make everybody feel comfortable.

        When recruiting new members, remember that high school and college
students (whose minds are still open), middle to upper income people
aged 30 to 50 (who are generally pro-rights), and small businessmen
(who know the perils of excessive government) are often especially
interested in pro-rights issues.

        At the meeting, pass around a sign-in list for people's names,
address, and phone number. Before the next meeting, call through the
list, reminding people about the date, time, and location of the next
meeting, and inviting them to attend. The calling can be
time-consuming, but the personal touch really does make a difference.

        When the meeting is finished, ask people what they liked and
didn't like, and ask one-on-one for suggestions for future meeting
topics.

        And lastly, if the group is productive, but the meetings aren't,
stop holding meetings, and put the energy that you were using to
organize meetings into other projects for the group.

Committees

        An effective grassroots group may simply be three people. Such a
small group has little need for formal structure; it just needs to get
each member going on projects for which the particular member is
suited.

        Larger groups, though, may need more structure. One effective way
to build structure is through committees. A committee consists of a
chair--chosen for her reliability and ability to get things done--and as
many committee members are necessary. Committees focus on one
particular area of responsibility. Some of the committees your group
might use are:

o         Communications Committee. Works on newsletters for members and
other interested people. Informs members of actions by the
organization. Coordinates letter-writing campaigns to elected
officials. Runs the phone tree/phone circle (see chapter 20).

o         Logistics Committee. Organizes meeting times and places, and
informs members of upcoming meetings. Also keeps close watch on the
legislative calendars of relevant local governments, and informs
members about local government meetings involving gun issues.

o         Finance Committee. Raises funds for the organization. In addition
to soliciting the membership, and raising funds at gun shows, the
committee can also ask for help from sympathetic local businesses,
such as gun stores. Fundraising is generally more successful when
donors know that the money will be used for a specific project, or
will have a clear tangible value. For example, next to the donation
can at your information table write out: ``$15 will pay for printing
for one thousand educational flyers''

o         Press Committee. Drafts news releases, keeps a list of addresses
for local media, calls and writes media to inform them of upcoming
events. Some Press Committee tips are offered later in this chapter.

        The organizational structure above is just an outline. Don't feel
constrained to stick with it if another type of committee organization
would work best for your group. Each group's organization should be
flexible, to reflect the particular abilities of its members.

Membership Lists

        Speaking of lists, your organization will likely end up compiling
a list of people in the area who are interested in gun rights. Some
people who sign up will feel very strongly about not being put in a
database someplace, or having their name given out. Respect their
wishes.

Recruiting New Members

        Emphasize benefits, not features. If you've got a table at a gun
show, and are trying to raise individual contributions, point out how
your group can benefit the donor (e.g., ``we're working to defeat the
semiautomatic ban that the anti-gun lobbies are pushing in the
legislature''). Don't emphasize features, which may not interest your
donor (e.g., ``our group was founded in 1990'').

        At legislative hearings and other gatherings related to gun
control, circulate a sign-up sheet in the audience, asking for names,
addresses, and phone numbers of people who would like to work together
to fight gun control.

        Because you'll be operating on a financial shoestring, every
source of revenue will be important, and no revenue source will be as
important as memberships. Set the dues high enough to cover your cost
of recruiting, and to leave something extra for your operating
expenses. Twenty or twenty-five dollars would be about right.

        Do not prorate your dues for what part of the year they come in.
If your annual dues are $20, don't in July sell a ten dollar
membership that expires at the end of the year. Instead, make
memberships good for one full year. If it's much easier
administratively for you to have all memberships expire at the end of
the year, offer people who sign up late in the year some kind of
premium, but still collect the full dues amount. (E.g., in July, sell
a $20 membership that expires in December, and throw in a free t-shirt
as a bonus.)

        Consider selling multiyear memberships at a discount. The
multiyear memberships are helpful because you don't have to worry
about renewal, don't have to spend any resources encouraging renewal,
and you get a good sum of cash right up front. So if annual dues are
$25, then offer a two-year membership for $40. You'll probably need to
be around for a couple years before people are willing to invest in
three or five year memberships.

Membership Cards and Paraphernalia

        People liking having some tangible token of their membership.
During your organization's first six months, new members can have the
added distinction of being ``charter members,'' a fact which the
membership card should recognize.

        If you know someone who can volunteer some graphic design
services, ask them to create an attractive logo for your group. And
think up a good slogan that the group can put on its membership cards,
newsletter, and other materials.

        Besides membership cards, you may also want to create t-shirts,
bumper stickers, buttons, and similar accessories. Members will enjoy
wearing them; non-members will enjoy buying them, and everybody who
has one will be a walking advertisement for the group.

        Before selling anything, check with your city, county, or state
Department of Revenue (or Tax Bureau), and find out the rules
regarding sales tax.

        For these products--and for everything else you do-- it's best to
take things one step at a time. Instead of ordering 500 t-shirts,
order 20, and see how they sell, see how well the supplier meets your
needs, and see if it's a small project that shows potential for
becoming a larger project, or if it was an experiment that should be
abandoned for more productive endeavors.

        If plan to do a mailing to recruit new members, it's conventional
wisdom in the direct mail business that self-addressed envelopes more
than pay for themselves. If you make it easy for people to mail you
money, they're more likely to do so.

        In the long run, the cheapest self-addressed envelopes are the
Business Reply Mail type. The Post Office charges a you premium to
deliver these. But since you only pay for the envelopes that people
actually send back to you, the cost savings can be substantial. Check
with your local Post Office for the detailed requirements for using
Business Reply Mail.

        You don't have to get stationary or business cards right away, but
when you do so, make sure they look professional.

Personal Skills

        Here's the most important tip: Listen more than you talk. People
will help your pro-rights efforts for their reasons, not for your
reasons. Listen carefully to what interests them, and then suggest how
your group is supporting their interests. Emphasize areas of
agreement, rather than disagreement. If you're leafleting a shopping
mall, and somebody takes your literature, and says ``I think that
people need guns for protection, but I don't see what's wrong with a
waiting period,'' you don't need to engage him in a debate about
waiting periods. Instead, talk about how your group is working to
promote the right to have guns for self-protection (such as by
supporting a concealed carry bill, or by opposing gun prohibitions).
It's more important to win allies than to win debates, so save your
arguments for another day.

        In discussions among your group, and in everything you do with the
group, don't act like the great dictator. The more you encourage other
people to talk and to make decisions, the more involved they'll want
to be.

        Unskilled as your volunteers may be, they won't stay volunteers
long if you just put them at a desk and make them stuff envelopes. The
really tedious work should be shared by everyone (especially you) in
``work party'' atmosphere, with ample beer and refreshments on hand.

        And while you're encouraging people to work hard, make things fun.
Consider what we know about life in the military: People join the
military for many reasons, including ideological reasons and
patriotism. But when soldiers are running across open fields under
hostile fire, or sleeping in foxholes, their motivation doesn't have
much to do with ideology. The soldiers who perform the best in combat
are those who are part of a cohesive unit. When you're under fire,
your desire to save your buddy's life by pulling him out of a ditch is
a lot more important at motivating action than your attitude towards
the Bill of Rights.

         Similarly (sort of), volunteers will come to your organization
because of their ideological support for freedom. But the most
important factor in determining whether they will develop into
long-term, active volunteers is whether they form friendships with
other folks in the group.

        Accordingly, make sure that your meetings have plenty of
opportunity for socializing. Just asking people to drive downtown,
listen to a speech, and then leave, isn't going to promote
camaraderie. Having a cocktail hour before the meeting, or beer and
pretzels afterward, or making the meeting itself a potluck supper are
among the ways to promote conversation. You can also have parties
without a formal meeting, and urge members to bring friends and
family.

        People thrive on praise and recognition, so distribute them out
generously. If people take on projects, give them a title. The woman
who volunteers to write the press release can become the Media
Relations Director, and the guy who drops off the press release at all
15 radio stations can be the Assistant Media Director. These titles
aren't meant to be grandiose, but to reflect the training you'll be
giving, to help people build skills, and take on more and more
responsibility themselves.

        In fact, your most important contribution as a leader will be to
help other people develop the skills and confidence to take on
responsibility and leadership themselves.

        When big projects are completed, hand out the praise and
recognition for those who helped. If you're holding a press
conference, early in your remarks thank by name the volunteers who
made it happen.

Advisory Council

        A group's credibility is enhanced if it has the support of
well-known civic leaders. If there are some local elected officials,
university professors, business leaders, religious leaders, or similar
folks who would support your group's pro-rights objectives, invite
them to serve on the group's Advisory Council. Your letterhead can
include a list of Advisory Council members.

        And what does the Advisory Council actually do? First of all, you
should turn to it for advice. The reason that your Advisory Council
members have become prominent in the community is that they're good at
something. Take advantage of their experience. (You don't need to call
the Council together as a formal body; a telephone call to a
particular Council member will be fine.)

        Perhaps over time, the Advisory Council members will grow even
more enthusiastic about the pro-rights cause, and be interested in
taking a more active role. Council members might serve as
spokespersons for the group, or help with fundraising.

        As always, be flexible, and adapt our suggestions to your
particular circumstances. For example, if two State Senators--but
nobody else--volunteer to serve as advisors to your group, you don't
really have enough people to create an ``Advisory Council.'' So make the
two Senators ``Honorary Chairpersons'' of the group. The Senators might
even be so pleased with their lofty title that they'd help you send
out a press release announcing their new role.

Affiliations with Larger Groups

        Affiliation doesn't mean that you simply become a local chapter of
the national group. Rather, your independent local group maintains a
link with national group, in order that the two groups can share
information and expertise

        Affiliating with a national pro-rights organization can give you a
tremendous leg up in learning the basics of organizing activists. You
can benefit from the national organization's years of experience, and
avoid learning the hard way about mistakes other activists have made.
The Citizens' Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (Alan's
group) is particularly eager to work with local activists.

        National groups are also likely to have campaigns in progress that
you can join.

New Chapters?

        Inspired by your success, activists in other cities may ask if
they can form area chapters of your group. If you feel comfortable
with them, sign them up. But in the long run (or maybe even the short
run), your goal should be for them to form their own group. To help
them, offer to share all the expertise and resources you have to get
them get started.

        Two groups in different cities can still coordinate their
activities, but each group will get more done if its energy is
concentrated in actual work, rather than in managing a multi-city
structure.

Newsletter

        Once a group gets established, it's a good idea to publish a
newsletter. Once a month is a common interval. The newsletter can be
as simple as an 8 1/2 x 11 inch flyer, or much more elaborate.
Newsletters are great to hand out at gun shows; they help bring in new
members, and help alert everyone about projects, elections, and
legislative issues.

        Newsletters need not look like 4-color glossy corporate reports,
but neither should their look like they were produced on a mimeograph
machine that saw its best days during the Eisenhower administration.
With today's advances in computers and desktop publishing, it's not to
hard to put together a nice-looking newsletter that conveys the sense
of organization and efficiency that will attract new members.

        The title should be closely linked to the name of your group. If
your group is the ``East Orange Public Safety Association,'' call the
newsletter the ``East Orange Public Safety Association Newsletter.''
True, it would be more glamorous to call the newsletter ``The
Liberator,'' but since you're trying to build name recognition for your
group, you need to make it very easy for people (even people who
aren't careful readers) to associate the newsletter with the group.

        Every newsletter should include a blank form for new members to
fill out in order to join. The blank form can ask people which areas
they would be most interested in helping in:

``Please check all of the following which interest you:

___Handing out leaflets or manning tables at gun  shows

___Making phone calls to voters in support of pro-gun candidates

___Putting up yard signs for pro-gun candidates

___Having a sign in your own yard.''

        Every newsletter should list the names, addresses, and phone
numbers of your two US Senators, the US Representatives in your area,
and other public officials to whom you are encouraging people to
write. And every newsletter should encourage people to take specific
actions (writing a letter, registering to vote, etc.) in whatever
battle is going on at the moment.

        If the newsletter will be mailed, make it a self-mailer. One side
of a folded sheet of the newsletter contains space for the addressee,
thereby obviating the need for a separate envelope.

        The news that goes in your newsletter can include updates on
events in Washington, DC and your state capital, details of your
group' s recent meetings and activities, local news relating to the
gun issue, facts about guns and gun control, reprints of pertinent
material from other publications (telephone to get permission first),
and announcements of forthcoming shooting events.

        And don't neglect to tell folks what the anti-gun people are up
to. Most gunowners are like the militia members of the American War
for Independence. When the threat is close at hand, they'll fight with
vigor and determination. But when trouble seems far away, they don't
take much interest in public affairs. And since the mainstream media
doesn't always slot gun control stories into the limited space
available, terrible anti-gun bills may be moving through Congress or
your state legislature, and most gun-owners may have no idea that
there is a danger.

        In the newsletter (as elsewhere) be generous in praise for people
who have helped with the group.

        Legislators, being human (usually), like praise just as much as
everyone else--more so, in fact, since they keep their jobs only as
long as they stay popular. So use the newsletter to give full
recognition to public officials who have voted for or otherwise helped
the pro-rights cause. If the legislator gave a good speech on the
floor of the legislator when she voted for the bill, reprint the
speech in your newsletter.

        While all legislators are hungry for praise, urban Congresspeople
are especially hungry. In many states, including California, North
Carolina, Florida, and New York, Congressional districts are twisted,
bizarre oddities that run in thin strips from county to another to
another, turn, and then veer off for the next county at a strange
angle. These gerrymandered monstrosities mean that the Representative
elected to the district does not represent a single town, or a
cohesive group of neighborhoods, but instead represents disparate
slices of several towns, or freakish slices of various neighborhoods.
The result of all this is that the Congressman may have a hard time
getting attention from the home-town newspaper, since he doesn't
represent any full town. Consequently, the Congressman is all the
hungrier for good publicity wherever he can find it--and your
newsletter should supply it.

Awards

        Besides giving pro-rights legislators good coverage in your
newsletter, you may want to give an annual award to an outstanding
legislator or two. The award can be announced at an annual dinner (if
your group has one), or similar occasion. Or the award can simply be
mailed to the legislator, along with a nice cover letter. An engraved
wall plaque will be appreciated, especially by state and local
officials. The inscription on the plaque could read something like
this:

OUTSTANDING LEGISLATOR OF THE YEAR

presented to

State Representative

Walter E. Dilworthy

for his energetic and devoted

work in defense of

the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

March 22, 1990

Central Outerway Citizens for Safety

Leafleting and Information Tables

        Places to hand out leaflets include any large public area, such as
fairs, shopping malls, museums, government buildings, colleges, office
buildings, factories, and especially college student unions.
Door-to-door leafleting is also possible, but make sure that
volunteers don't put leaflets into mail boxes. The United States
Postal Service zealously guards its mail monopoly, and putting
material without a stamp into a mailbox is a fast road to ruin. (We
don't make the rules; we're just letting you know.)

        Set up an information table at a shopping mall (ask permission
first) or a public event such as a street fair. Posters, banners, and
the like help draw attention to the table. Or just hand out literature
there. When handing out literature, make sure to emphasize that it's
free.

        Shopping malls, like other places which are private property, have
a right to exclude you, in most states. If the mall security officer
tells you to stop leafleting, respect the mall owners' property
rights.

        Smiles are always important when meeting the public, but they're
particularly helpful when leafleting.

        Everything in a leaflet (like everything else you put in print)
should be backed up with authoritative sources that you can document.

        Information tables are good places to encourage letter-writing.
Bring a list of the relevant addresses, and a healthy supply of
stationary and pens. (See also chapter 17, on computer-generated
letters.) Public areas are also good places to collect signatures on
petitions.

        If you can, bring a television and VCR, and keep pro-rights tapes
playing.

        And after you're done with the day's literature distribution,
police the entire area to pick up any material of yours that might
have been littered on the premises. Going out of your way to be a
considerate guest raises your chances of being allowed to come back.

        Information tables can also raise a little money by selling
t-shirts, buttons, and the like. The NRA and  the Citizens Committee
for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms have a good supply of merchandise
that they make available at wholesale prices to grassroots groups.

Media

        One of your main objectives will be to get media coverage of your
group's activities, so as to bring your message to many more people
than you could through direct contacts.

        Make a list of media contacts in your area, and keep it updated.
The list should include not only media addresses, but also the names
of the reporters and editorial writers who keep doing stories about
gun issues. Since a media career requires frequently changes of
assignment--and of employer--keep the list fresh.

        Don't snub the small papers in your area (like the give-away
weeklies). They're much easier to get coverage in than are large urban
dailies.

        Remember that the news media exist to cover news. Just
articulating a position isn't newsworthy. Taking action (especially
the kind of action that creates interesting photos) is newsworthy.

        Anytime you're trying to get the local press to cover something,
make sure it has a local angle. Even if the issue is a national rather
than a local one, find a local angle on it. For example, while the
Congressional debate on banning so-called ``assault weapons'' is a
national issue, the fact that a local gun club is using them in a
tournament is a local angle.

        Never say anything to any journalist that you don't want to see in
print. Many journalists will keep a promise of confidentiality, or of
being ``off-the-record,'' but some don't.

        Strive to make yourself useful to the local media. Provide them
with useful, accurate information. Everything the media ask from you,
they will ask on short notice, because the reporters themselves are
under time deadlines. Help the reporters out by being able to fit with
their schedules, by suggesting additional sources for them to
interview, and by remembering that while the media as a whole may be
biased, every individual reporter should be treated with respect.

        Once your quotes start appearing in print and broadcast reports,
your influence will be magnified. Not only will you be reaching larger
audiences, elected officials will begin to see the media take your
group seriously, and may start to do the same themselves.

Finances

        As the above sections on fundraising ideas have indicated, money
will always be tight. At the same time, the group's finances may be
closely watched by government regulators. So keep close track of your
finances, right from the start.

         Believe it or not, while you'll be poor, many folks will think
that you're rich, because they've fallen for the myth that ``the gun
lobby'' is made out of cash.

Elections

        Chapter 23 contains detailed advice for how to participate in
elections effectively.

        Finally, don't be afraid to ask for help. The Citizens Committee
for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms would be glad to offer you advice
on anything you need. And your NRA State Liaison--while usually very
busy--will also be eager to help grassroots organizations. The NRA also
has staff assigned full-time to assisting grassroots groups. Your
local bookstore's or library's business section will have several
advice books on how to run a non-profit association.

31. How to Write a Press Release

``IF YE LOVE WEALTH MORE THAN LIBERTY, THE TRANQUILLITY OF SERVITUDE
GREATER THAN THE ANIMATING CONTEST FOR FREEDOM, GO HOME AND LEAVE US
IN PEACE. WE SEEK NOT YOUR COUNCIL, NOR YOUR ARMS. CROUCH DOWN AND
LICK THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU; AND MAY POSTERITY FORGET THAT YE WERE
OUR COUNTRY MEN.'' Samuel Adams

Timing

        Send the press release out well in advance of the event you want
covered. Many small newspapers publish only once a week, so get the
release to them in plenty of time for their own deadlines. If you have
any doubts about timing, call their office, and ask about their
deadlines. As a rule of thumb, try to send the release at least 15
days in advance of the event.

        If you know of a particular person at the media outlet who might
be interested in doing a story based on your event, send the release
addressed to them. (And to be safe, send another copy of the release
just addressed to the media outlet.)

        On the morning of the event, call the places you've already sent
the press release to, and remind them about the event. Send a fax of
the press release too.

Style

        A press release should never be more than 2 pages long (one page
is better), and should be double-spaced, with wide margins.

        Since the media receive literally dozens of press releases a day,
do what you can with graphics to make it look attractive. Put an
interesting title on top. If your organization has a logo, use it. And
print the release on colored paper. (This last suggestion applies to
releases that will be mailed or hand-delivered, and not to faxed
releases.) When choosing colors, avoid red, since red is an
``emotional'' color, and the whole object of the pro-rights effort is to
help undecided folks look at the issue in a rational, non-hysterical
manner.

        There should be at least a one-inch margin at the left, right,
top, and bottom of the page. (This applies to any kind of written
output, in fact.)

        Proofread the draft release numerous times, and verify every fact
contained in the release.

        Ideally, the entire text of the press release should not occupy
more than one side of a sheet of paper. If the press release
absolutely requires more than one page, put your group's name, the
title of the press release, and the name and phone number of the
contact person at the top of the second page.

        Press releases sent to the print media should be written so that
they are ready to insert in the publication, as a self-standing story.
Likewise, press releases for the radio should be capable of being read
on the air.

        Proofread it again, just before you send it out.

Substance

        When print or radio editors need to cut a story for length, they
generally cut from the bottom. So make sure that all the most
essential information is at the beginning, not the end. Press releases
should use the ``inverted pyramid'' writing style, whereby the most
important facts come first, the less important facts in the middle,
and the least important facts at the end. Saving the best material for
the end is all right for detective novels, but not for press releases.

        The opening sentence of the press release must have a strong lead
that grabs the reader's attention. The second paragraph of the news
release can be used to explain the significance of the event. By the
end of the first two paragraphs, you should have supplied all of the
``five Ws'' (who, what, where, when, and why. And also how).

        In addition, show the ``human interest'' aspect to your release,
emphasizing who your story affects, and how it affects them. For
example:

For immediate release

For more information, contact:

Bob Skjellyfeti (505) 555-8740.

Gun Safety Classes

        Firearms safety classes for the community will be held on June 18,
at the North Shore Gun Club. The four-hour classes are free to the
public, and begin at 1 p.m at the 509 West Main Street.

        Club President Jackie Jackson explained that the recent surge in
gun ownership after the Los Angeles riots makes it especially
important that gun owners learn proper safety techniques. Ms. Jackson
added that everyone in the community is welcome to attend, whether or
not they own a gun. Persons without their own gun may borrow a club
gun to use at the range.

The last paragraph can include a brief description of the group
sending the press release. Make sure that the release includes the
name, address, phone number, and contact person for the group.

Content

        Press releases should not be sent out as a writing exercise. Send
them only when there is something genuinely newsworthy. The subject
must have immediacy (be about something that's happening now, or will
happen soon), and must have a local angle to it. Ideally, the subject
should relate to some other event currently in the news.

        The press release should be written so as to stimulate a
reporter's interest in covering the story himself, and to provide the
person who compiles the newspaper's ``community calendar'' section with
concise information to insert a paragraph about your event.

32. Public Service Announcements

``IF THERE IS NO STRUGGLE THERE IS NO PROGRESS.'' Frederick Douglass,
abolitionist, letter to Gerrit Smith, March 30, 1849.

        Public service announcements are free advertising, run by the
media as a public service. They most commonly appear on radio,
sometimes on television, and once in a while in print media.

        Because radio and television broadcast licenses are allocated by
the Federal Communication Commission ``in the public interest''
(theoretically), stations like to broadcast public service
announcements to show how public-minded they are. PSAs also help fill
up unsold advertising slots.

Radio

        Let's start with radio. Every radio station will have someone in
charge of PSAs. Call your local stations, learn who the PSA person is,
and find out what the station's PSA guidelines are. All future
communications with the station should be aimed at the PSA person.

        The PSA for the radio station will be a neatly-typed script that a
station DJ/announcer can read on the air. The script should be about
20 seconds (40-50 words) long, unless station guidelines specify a
different length.

        Read the PSA out loud to yourself many times, so that you can
revise it and make it as close to perfect as you can get.

        The PSA should conclude with a tag line indicating who produced
the PSA, such as ``This announcement brought to you by the North
Eastwick Rifle Club.''

        Also on the PSA sheet (but not in the on-the-air script) should be
a contact person and a telephone number, so that the station can
contact you if there are questions.

        Public service announcements have to relate to some type of public
service. Political and/or legislative material is not allowed. Nor
should any person or organization be criticized. The PSA should
involve something to do with community programs or education, rather
than with anything partisan or for-profit. Examples of PSAs could
include: announcing an upcoming safety class at a local gun club;
informing the public about an upcoming speech or debate; urging people
who have firearms to store them safely; or telling children that if
they find a gun, they should not touch it, should leave the area
immediately, and should tell an adult.

        Once you've got a good PSA written, send copies to all radio
stations in your area that do PSAs.

        The NRA can also help you with PSAs, especially for the group's
Eddie Eagle child safety program.

Television

        The same general guidelines used for radio apply to television.
While most radio PSAs will be broadcast late at night (when it's
harder for the station to sell advertising slots), virtually every
television PSA will be late-nighter. (That means 2 a.m., not during
the Tonight Show.)

        While a radio PSA can simply be a written script, you'll have to
give the television station a ready-to-use videotape. That's not as
hard as it might sound. If you live in an area with cable TV, there
will be at least one ``public access'' channel. The purpose of the
public access channel is to help ordinary folks produce and air TV
shows. So if you make an appointment for studio time at the public
access station, the staff will be glad to help you produce a short
commercial for use as a PSA. (Of course you'll have to think up all
the content; the staff can only help with production.)

        If you absolutely can't create a videotape, at least supply the
station with a few high-quality slides.

Print Media

        Broadcast media was invented at about the same time as the federal
government's explosive growth in the 1920s and 1930s. Print media, in
contrast, is older than America. As a result, print media grew to
maturity long before government could get ahold of it, and print media
is subject to much less regulation than broadcast media. Newspapers,
unlike radio and television stations, don't need government licenses,
and don't have government officials reviewing their content (usually).

        The greater independence of print media is good in general, but
bad for PSAs, since the print media don't have to convince any FCC
official that the media are acting ``in the public interest.''

        And while radio and television stations can't stop broadcasting
simply because they have empty advertising slots, a newspaper or
magazine that doesn't sell enough advertising simply prints fewer
pages. As a result, the print media has much less incentive than the
broadcast media to run PSAs.

        Nevertheless, PSAs do find their way into print media. First of
all, press releases which get printed sometimes function as a kind of
PSA.

        Secondly, some print media (particularly the smaller, newer ones)
will run free advertising for public interest groups that the
publisher likes. For example, the advertising space you see for the
``Partnership for a Drug-Free America'' is donated by the host newspaper
or magazine. (Much of the Partnership advertising is, unfortunately,
just as hysterical and factually incorrect as advertising from the
anti-gun lobby.)

        If you have a friendship with a local publisher, ask her if she
would be interested in running some pro-rights advertising as a public
service. The Second Amendment Foundation, CCRKBA, and the NRA all have
camera-ready copy (meaning that the advertisement needs no layout or
other further production work) which they can send to any interested
newspaper or magazine.

33.  SUPPORT OTHER PRO-RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS

``ETHICAL INSIGHTS ARE BORN IN ATTACKS UPON CONFORMITY TO EXISTING
MORES.'' Rollo May.

        One of the greatest strengths of the anti-gun lobbies is their
ability to network with like-minded organizations and leaders. The
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (formerly the National Coalition to Ban
Handguns) has relatively few actual members. But the Coalition
networks with powerful organizations whose leaders support gun
prohibition, and thereby achieves far more influence than it could
solely on the strength of its membership base.

        Likewise, Handgun Control, Inc. does an outstanding job at
reaching out to important political and other leaders to enlist them
in the cause. While these leaders are usually not interested enough in
the gun issue to play a major role (otherwise they would already have
volunteered to help HCI), they are happy to add their name to a press
release, or put in a good word with a Congressperson they know, if HCI
comes to them, and makes it easy for them to help.

        Just as the anti-gun lobby has increased its clout by copying many
of the tactical innovations of the pro-rights lobby (such as effective
use of direct mail), pro-rights folks should take a leaf from the
opposition, and work to build bridges with sympathetic community
leaders.

        For instance, suppose you're friends with a physician. Also
suppose that your state legislature is considering whether to require
that licensed, trained citizens be allowed to carry concealed handguns
for protection. At an appropriate moment, ask her what she thinks of
the gun issue. If she says ``I think people ought to be able to have
guns for protection, but I don't see why the NRA is so crazy that it
won't even accept a waiting period.''

        At this point you do not engage her in a debate over waiting
periods. Instead, you express your agreement with her basic attitude
about guns. Then bring up the concealed carry bill in the legislature,
and see what she thinks of it--especially in light of the fact that
licenses would only be issued after there is a background check, and
proof of safety training.

        If she likes the general idea, suggest that her support might help
the carry reform bill get enacted. Perhaps she could testify before a
legislative committee, and explain why doctors--who must sometimes
carry controlled prescription drugs while traveling--are robbery
targets, and need guns for protection. Or maybe she would just want to
write a letter to her State Senator. If she says she'd like to help,
you could offer to draft a letter for her consideration.

        There's no limit to the kinds of folks who can approached for
assistance: religious leaders, union officials, professional
associations, teachers, professors, scientists, and more. Some will
rebuff you; others will be delighted to be asked and will be willing
to do something major (such as give a speech to a local group like the
Rotary); some will do something smaller, like write to their
Congressperson; and others may just ask you to send them more
information.

        Prior to a meeting with anyone you don't know well, it always
helps to learn a little bit about what makes them tick. As detailed in
chapter 22 (finding out more about your legislators), computer
databases such as Prodigy, Compuserve, and Nexis; and the Martindale
Hubbell legal directory can provide you with some basic background
about community leaders. Public libraries contain numerous other
biographical guides which you may find helpful.

        Making alliances with local activist groups involved in other
issues is often an effective tactic. One obstacle to such alliances is
that each group wants to stick to its own agenda, for fear of
alienating members on peripheral issues. For example, your local gun
group probably wouldn't want to take a stand on abortion, since the
gun group probably includes members who are pro-choice and other
members who are pro-life. Likewise, the local tax limitation group may
feel uncomfortable taking a stand on gun control. But there is a way
to finesse this problem: each group can pick an angle to the issue
that fits within the group's own agenda. For example, your gun group
and the local anti-tax group might agree that they both oppose a
proposed increase in gun licensing fees.

        The more you can get other groups involved, even if peripherally,
in the gun issue, the more impressed elected officials will be about
the importance of gun rights. For instance, the anti-tax group might
send legislators a 20-item questionnaire to determine election-year
endorsements. If one of the questions is ``Do you support or oppose
Governor Baldbreath's proposal to double the fee for gun licenses?''
the legislator reading the questionnaire will start to get the idea
that gun freedom is important to more than just gun organizations.

        And if an organization just flat-out turns you down, don't walk
away in a huff. Accept their decision, but ask if you can send them
information about the issue from time to time. Over the long run,
patient outreach can make quite a change. In the early 1960s, the
Sierra Club favored nuclear power, and Planned Parenthood opposed
abortion. Over time, dedicated activists convinced those groups to
change their mind.

34. Parting Shots

``THE LIBERTIES OF OUR COUNTRY, THE FREEDOM OF OUR CIVIL CONSTITUTION,
ARE WORTH DEFENDING AT ALL HAZARDS; AND IT IS OUR DUTY TO DEFEND THEM
AGAINST ALL ATTACKS. WE HAVE RECEIVED THEM AS A FAIR INHERITANCE FROM
OUR WORTHY ANCESTORS: THEY PURCHASED THEM FOR US WITH TOIL AND DANGER
AND EXPENSE OF TREASURE AND BLOOD, AND TRANSMITTED TO US WITH CARE AND
DILIGENCE. IT WILL BRING AN EVERLASTING MARK OF INFAMY ON THE PRESENT
GENERATION, ENLIGHTENED AS IT IS, IF WE SHOULD SUFFER THEM TO BE
WRESTED FROM US BY VIOLENCE WITHOUT A STRUGGLE, OR BE CHEATED OUT OF
THEM BY THE ARTIFICES OF FALSE AND DESIGNING MEN.'' Samuel Adams, 1771.

        Like Hollywood, we believe that anything that's worth doing right
is worth a sequel. So we're already at work on volume two of this
book, which will cover material that we couldn't fit in the first
book. We'll go into topics such as which corporations support or
oppose the Second Amendment, how gun clubs and gun stores can maximize
their effectiveness in supporting civil liberties, which gun companies
really support the right to bear arms, and how you can fight back
against media bias. Plus plenty of other topics.

        If you have suggestions about what has worked for you--regarding
any type of pro-rights activism--drop us a line, and maybe we'll be
able to include your advice in volume 2. Send your note to: Alan
Gottlieb & Dave Kopel, Volume 2 Project, Citizens Committee for the
Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 12500 NE Tenth Place, Bellevue, WA 98005.