An Honest Hoplorato

I'm late getting to it, but Nancy tagged me for the honest gun owner meme. I am suppose to write down 5 things that make me consider a fellow gun owner is an honest one, and then pass this on chain-letter style to other gun bloggers. I'm gonna break the rules here in 2 ways. First, I'm not passing this on as I'm very late to the party and most everyone else has already done this. Consider me a leaf in this tree of memedom.

Second, I'm narrowing the field to that of honest hoplorati because, when you think about it, even Chuck Schumer is a gun owner. There are plenty of dishonest gun owners out there, and I'm not even gonna pretend to play their "I support the Second Amendment but..." game. Hoplorati are a different breed.

So five marks of an honest hoplorato:

1. They admit that while gun 1, gun 2 and gun 3 are legitimately weapons of self-defense, guns 4 through 18 are all about a hobby. Ok, we can quibble about the cut-off and fudge the scrimmage line, but an honest hoplorato will admit to having some firearms because guns are just fun to play with.
2. They admit that in the court of public opinion, ours is a minority position. Yes, things have changed for the better in recent years and the majority of Americans do support rights to self-defense, but that full-on mall-ninjaness is not a lifestyle accepted by most.
3. They recognize that "NO COMPROMISE!" is a loosing political strategy. We lost our rights incrementally, and we'll gain them back incrementally. There are no perfect candidates supporting our rights. And sometimes our political lobbying organizations are stuck between a rock and a hard place in the things they must do.
4. They admit that there are people who do really stupid things with guns, and worse, there are people who do really bad things with guns.
5. They admit that a firearm is not the only means of self-defense, and other forms of defense and related training are valuable and legitimate.

Alright, this isn't in the same vein of thought the meme started with but I think probably useful to point out. In the silly political season coming up, we should remember to be honest with ourselves. By doing so, we'll better craft arguments and strategies to sway the public to our side and build a larger constituency.