How, When, Where does this madness stop?

[TScottO]

Everyday I take time out to fool with my guns, reload, check out a few forms and wonder what I wish to buy next when my funds allow a purchase.

I want to buy more guns but I need more components to shoot my guns.

Then I want to buy more guns but I want to get set up for casting so I need my cash for casting equipment.

I want to buy more guns but I need to purchase a chrony.

I find a gun I’d love to have but I’m holding out for a more expensive gun I really want.

I want to buy more guns but I’m saving for a hunting trip to Colorado next year, then a fly fishing trip in 2005, then hopefully a trip to Africa in 2005 or 2006.

Does this madness ever end?

I sat around the other day and figured out how much money I have in shooting equipment, guns, ammo, optics, reloading, gun club dues...

 hunting lease dues………

lord this is expensive…………

does it ever end?

Life in complicated.

Am I alone here?

Or will others need therapy along with me in the near future?

I need a better job!

 :shock:

Just some random thoughts,
Scott

[KN]

I thought this was therapy!!! KN

[myronman3]

when we die?

[varmint101]

It never ends!!!  Every time I think I'm catching up there's something else I 'need'!   :-D

Matt

[PJ]

What :eek:  I can't even think about stopping :)Crap someone pass me a beer and a new barrel.I have to sit down.

[Graycg]

Actually, I just had a flash....well at least a dim glow,
   Figure out how much you spend on all of this obsession, all the things you listed and anything else that appropriately applies and then send a letter to all your legislators about how much money you put into the economy on your enjoyments and ask them if they are more interested in the leftist political correctness of being anti-gun and anti-hunting or are they more interested in allowing you to continue safely persuing your spending obsession and keeping the local economy afloat!!!
   I'm putting my list together (keeping secret from the wife of course) and getting ready to send to the law makers in my chain of command.  If we all did this and they ever pulled their heads out of their butts and added it all up...maybe, just maybe they would leave us alone for a while....  
  just a thought,
   Graycg

[Tony D]

Gray, the NRA and other organizations have been doing this for years - firearms, archery, hunting and fishing is a MULTI BILLION dollar industry each year!  I do like your idea - let your Congressmen know that the numbers are real and their constituents are a big part of it.

Great idea!

[BruceP]

It's funny you should post this today. Just last night I opened the computer file I have of my firearm inventory and aprox. values. As I read through it I realized two things. #1 man that adds up to a lot of money.  :eek: #2 I need to update the list. I have some guns that were never added.  :lol:
BruceP

[HappyHunter]

I will not be telling the government how much money I spend on guns.  

In the wrong hands this may make my guns a target someday.

Jusy my opinion (paranoia maybe).

HH

[MS Hitman]

No, paranoia is defined as an unreasonable fear.  What you say is very real.

[TScottO]

I fully believe, we as active gun owners, need a better way to influence certain political figures to the necessity of our firearm heritage. However those political figures that lobby against guns probably know more about the amount of revenue the gun populous puts into the economy than we do. To those types of politicians, I fully believe, are not concerned about revenue. It’s about control. Once they take away our firearms they essential take away our freedom.

Here’s and example of something the government has done over the years to gradually take away our rights and freedom:               The right to have and form militias was set by our forefathers to establish a way for the people to keep the government under control. To keep the government from getting too strong and greedy, this is where we find ourselves at the present time. However the American public didn’t exercise this right there fore we find ourselves in this struggle we are in today. If we take a look at laws past and bills that are now active it’s easy to see that many of the things it takes to have an effective militia are now unlawful. Though a militia is still one of our rights as citizens it would be impossible to have an effective militia with our current law set. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not some radical. I’m just trying to show a point as to how the government has taken small steps over the years to take away our privileges in order to control its people. Small accumulative steps have been taken in other areas of public life such as “right to privacy” and other venues as well. Not just in gun control. Many of these laws and bills are disguised to seem helpful at the time, a wolf in a lambs coat, but later can and will be used as the government sees fit, not the American public.

Gun control lobbyist in my opinion are just following suit with their control greedy predecessors. It’s not about the revenue generated. It’s about control. In reality gun control efforts take away our freedom and diminish our forefather’s dream for this country. It’s also a poor attempt to make up for a failed criminal punishment system.

The first step in preventing further deterioration of our constitution is to lobby against these people before they get into office. The chances of them “seeing the light” are slim to none, I’d guess…

I will not even insure my guns because of the documentation it takes to prove what I’ll be insuring.

This is the rednek interpretation.  :?

Scott

[Mikey]

TScott0:  sorry buddy, I have to agree with Tony D:  the only real way to influence politicians is with money and political influence.  Add up those dollar signs and consider the total, and on-going expenses, as your contribution to taxes that fund their salaries.  Don't narrow it down to how much per year or limit it so they may not see the full value of your contribution.  Set the dollar sign, that talks.

Then you can add the political influence to it by identifying how may gun owning voters there are in that particular politician's constituency and what sort of a voice they carry - here you can add salt to the wound and speak to the last national elections and the power of the NRA (or a coordinated gun owner's vote).

Never try and mince words with people who interpret whatever they hear any way they want to.  The Brady bunch will tell you that thousands of children die every year in the US due to guns - try and argue that with a demicrap or any other politician and you will lose.  Instead, use accepted fact - the FBI's latest crime statistics report and you can defeat their arguement in public embarrassment.  Let's not forget that clinton brushed off his infidelity on Monica Lewinsky - remember, she was the one who did him, he didn't do her even though he was there and was an active participant.

You have to consider politics to be something like hunting - if you're not prepared for what you are going to do you can put out a lot of lead trying to hit your target, or you can fire just one shot and hit the mark.  

Just my two cents worth.  Mikey.

[osceola]

Paranoia is just a heightened sense of awareness;o)

[TScottO]

I agree that politicians are money hungry. I also support the NRA but telling your Governor how much money you spend on shooting sports on an individual basis is not the way to approach this in my opinion.

We must look at the type of people that make up our antigun groups. There are several reasons people don’t like guns:
Group 1- doesn’t like guns because of a bad experience in their past. This bad experience could be because of someone’s irresponsibility leaving loaded guns around the house, a friend committing suicide with a gun or many more reasons.
Group 2-doesn’t like guns because of their ignorance and lack of knowledge, perhaps their whole life has been influenced my bad media.
Group 3-doesn’t like guns because of fear or wanting to control.
Group 4-doesn’t have an opinion either way on guns really they just find that there are  millions of dollars to be gained in law suits. These people take the opposing position simply for financial benefit.

This list could be endless.

When you find people in these groups that have power or wealth and are in some sort position to lobby against guns and have a are able to have strong negative effect on them they will use their power against them. If these people have strong conviction over firearms or they see firearms interfering with their vision of where they want the government to be. I strongly feel that revenue isn’t going to make a big difference to them simply because the ownership of guns, they feel, will interfere with their ideals.  Bill Clinton and his followers fully know the amount of money our favorite industry generates and still they continued to push their ideals and beliefs. Their impact on the gun industry is evident despite the great revenue we circulate. This was my whole point. For those people in these groups that can be influenced by revenue will be influenced by the approach of clearly defining the benefit of revenue generated by the firearms industry. But for those that are not influenced by this there needs to be another way. People are influenced by different things. The groups influenced by revenue are not the ones we really need to worry about. They are already being taken care of.

Times aren’t what they once were. Years ago firearms were a necessity of life to put food on the table for peoples families. As time has passed we have become more dependant on the government for our food and resources to sustain our life. In the future this will become more so than it is today. Our culture today is changing more and more as generations pass. People are becoming less exposed to firearms and our firearm heritage thus people will begin to lose touch. As a result less and less of the population will be on our side. These newer generations will grow up and become adults only to have been educated, about firearms, by the negative publicity of media.


Scott