Petitions

[HaZarD SFD]

Hmm free legal advice is great! Thanks Lawdog this will help.

[Galahad]

There is so such thing as 'free' legal advice, we all owe him 50 bucks now lol

[Lawdog]

Originally Posted by Galahad

There is so such thing as 'free' legal advice, we all owe him 50 bucks now lol

Throw the money into an airsoft fund of some sort. We're going to need it.

LD

[Luckyorwhat]

Lawdog you're not wrong - but 1, 2, 3 years ago your post would have been enough to get this thread deleted. Not just closed, completely removed from the forum so it can never even be referenced. You could do anything you liked, you just couldn't do it here.


But I have to point out that these things don't have to cost much. If you don't go to court, or hire a lawyer to draft the actual legislation, you're just making noise and getting on the radar.


Unfortunately this is Canada, and Robert Dahl's works on pluralism are found in the fiction section of bookstores. "Commoners influencing politics? How horrible."


Plus it would be easier to send a consolidated message if the threads where we tried to draft a list of priorities WASN'T DELETED. We tried to set up a list, so that we could hammer the same points over and over, in letters to the editor, to MPs, to bureaucrats. BUT THE THREADS WERE ALWAYS DELETED.


You look at some of the stuff they let go, you can post pictures of your shit floating in a toilet, but you can't post a topic about a letter writing campaign.


For the last few years we had plenty of people, with plenty of connections, willing to work their little butts off in their free time. I've volunteered with local politicians on their campaigns, and can tell you for a fact it's pretty damned easy to get a politician's ear when you and him are walking around canvassing neighbourhoods. (tip, they spilit into groups of 2, so if you are the best-dressed guy with a respectable haircut, they pick you to walk with them - and wear a long coat) The politician will even bring it up when you're walking, they'll say, "What's important to you?" or something similar.



P.S.

Greylocks - lots of people like the Liberals, but if you want to have a RIGHT to own property, then you simply have to stop voting for them.

The Conservatives are the only major party that has said people should have a right to own property. If you have a right to own proprerty, then the gov't legislation has to go to court every time they want to take property away from you - and then the burden of proof is on the gov't to prove that they're making 'reasonble limits' on your freedom.

Look how easy it is to take guns away compared to how hard it is to deport terrorist suspects. When you have Rights it makes it a lot, a whole lot harder for gov't to do stuff to you.

[Lawdog]

Originally Posted by Luckyorwhat

But I have to point out that these things don't have to cost much. If you don't go to court, or hire a lawyer to draft the actual legislation, you're just making noise and getting on the radar.


The Conservatives are the only major party that has said people should have a right to own property. If you have a right to own proprerty, then the gov't legislation has to go to court every time they want to take property away from you - and then the burden of proof is on the gov't to prove that they're making 'reasonble limits' on your freedom.

Look how easy it is to take guns away compared to how hard it is to deport terrorist suspects. When you have Rights it makes it a lot, a whole lot harder for gov't to do stuff to you.

You have some interesting ideas, but fortunately I have neither the time nor the inclination to figure out/discuss what happened three years ago.

Money is not just for going to court or drafting legislation. Lobbying money is primarily spent to buy access, either through meetings arranged and led by a pro lobbiest or at paid attendence events where you can actually get time with the people you need to influence. They tend to listen a little more closely when they know you spent coin to be at the party or sit beside them at dinner.

And completely off topic, I would argue that there is a right to own property in Canada, it is just not enshrined in the constitution, rather it is a common law right. I do however share your disappointment that PET did not enshrine this right in the constitution. I do not expect it to be added to the constitution in my lifetime.

LD

[BloodSport]

The threads were not always deleted, they were moved to the trash when after 10 pages of arguements the point was lost. Kinda like the 10 different threads all about the same thing that are currently running, and the countless others before this.

Biggest problem, is not the threads getting trashed, but the fact that so many people have their own personal agendas and motives on the subject. Until a select group of people are voted and decided on all these threads become places for people to rant and rave and quickly become useless. Like Lawdog said things like this do cost money and do take a ton of time. Everything all these posts (most of which have been created by forum members for less then 2 years, heck even 1) say should be done, have either already been tried and failed or are still in the works. There is no simple over night solution, and if there was we would have found it 14 years ago. Same thing happened with paintball in the 80's, everyone needs to calm down and really think this through. Not just say hey this is all we need to do, rush off do it, then fuck things up more because they did it wrong.

There are things in the works by some members in this community, who have been working on this for years. They have a much clearer understanding of whats going on. Once all the I's are dotted, and the T's are crossed I'm sure they will be brough into the open for action by them. Till then please stop creating a new thread each day (gives us Mods/admins less to merge/trash) as we do not need 50+ of them.

[Cortexburn]

Don't waste your time Bloodsport....we're obviously the one's at fault...airsoft is lost to all because of our " inaction " and our superiority complex that forces us to trash every thread....like this one.

[Luckyorwhat]

Give me a break. The threads seldom made it to a second page, and when they did half the posts were 'regulars' who showed up to tell us to STFU and that 'it's been tried before'. Sometimes there would only be a dozen people signing up to help, and then one troll post, it would say something about all our ideas having been tried before, and with that they would close the thread.

If you ever hear a call-in radio show, or read an article in the news paper, or read the letters to the editor in the newspaper, then you'd realize THAT STUFF DOESN'T COST MONEY.

Internet forums are GREAT because they allow thousands of people timely access to information and a place to organize and act on it.

You can have a radio show in Victoria do a couple hours on replica firearms, as soon as people hear it they post on this forum "RADIO SHOW ON NOW", and people start calling in to that show from across Canada.

IF, IF this forum lets us organize, THEN we could have a list of talking points that each caller would use, and their own logic (yes, people are allowed to have personal opinions - plus if everyone reads a statement word for word it's not too convincing).


Or you could have a poll running on the CTV website, or you could sign up to Angus Reid or one of the other polling companies, and when you receive a poll deling with replicas you post it on this forum (not hotlinked), and we all sign up an hammer it. Then when they read it on the news 88% of people polled were against stricter regulations.


Or you could post newspaper articles that are anti-airsoft, or simply misrepresent facts ('banning' replicas). And People read the articles and send in responses to the newspaper. Sometimes the responses get play, sometimes (if you encounter a true asshole) they just motivate the author to be even more anti-gun. Glen McGregor wrote a bunch of BS articles, he got flak, and then wrote an entire Series for the Ottawa Citizen about how bad guns are. But then they went too far, as they're prone to do, and they posted on the internet a searchable database of every firearm registered in Canada, searchable by address. Entire stores found their inventories posted online, a shopping list for criminals. So now there is yet more reason to scrap the registry, as complaints are pouring in to the Privacy Commissioner. Thus writing letters to newspapers can be beneficial in three ways; #1)you get press, could change reader's minds (including police) #2) you could change an influential author's mind, #3)the newspaper could lash out and dig a hole for itself, helping your cause in the process.


Plus I described an Easy, Cheap way to get face time with a politician - VOLUNTEER. Sure, we could set up an 'Airsoft Alliance' and start collecting money, making several people quickly wealthy, and have maybe some positive effect, if the people don't become more focused on raising money than getting work done. Or you could volunteer on a politician's campaign, or several politicians. You're GUARANTEED to get a chance to talk to them, and it will cost you a couple dozen hours, not several thousand dollars.


What's needed is for people to STOP saying what they can't do. They've said it for years now, we all know which members think what can't be done. Why they continue to go into threads and tell everyone to give up, I don't know, it pisses me off. I think the term is Sedition.

And then we'd hear the people who are saying what they CAN do.

[frankiet]

You know Lucky, I agree with a lot of what you said, but I think that we should not post an airsoft strategy on this site. This is a public site, and we know that we are being watched (paranoia has set in). However, before we have ourselves representatives, I think we DO need to know what their strategy is. I don't know how to solve this. I find it hard to have blind faith in those doing 'what's best'. Other than Miles, I really don't know the others involved. I have no idea where they stand. For all I know, they do or do not have a good plan. How should this be discussed? Over pizza and wings at my place?

In the end, I ask myself this question... The people who are planning airsoft's next moves - What do they owe me? The answer: Nothing. They have no personal connection to me. Sure, I've given Miles quite a 'few' dollars of business. Does that mean he'll stand up for me? Who knows? Which is why I won't sit on my hands and do nothing. If the 'big boys' want my input, help, whatever, I'd be willing to help. But until I hear anything, I set out on my own agenda. Hopefully it matches theirs. If anybody wants to get together, discuss this topic outside of this forum, feel free to PM me. I'd enjoy hearing other people's thoughts.

The quit bitching about it. You dont like how things have been done, then feel free to do something else. No one is forcing you to do it our way. All I see is a bunch of people pissing and moaning about "we have to do something" Then fucking go do it. You people keep listing all kinds of things to do...then go do it. Your all talking about what you could do, then go do it for christ sake. There is nothing stopping you from setting up a yahoo group forum or something else of your own and saving airsoft yourself. Shit, last I check, you could still post in the trash, so start your revolution there.
ASC is paid for by specific people, and those people are represented by the forum leaders. If your planning on doing something then go for it, but dont claim you speak for ASC without the forum leaders approval.

[lt_poncho]

LOL - you could put a lot of time and effort into investigating and strategic planning on what would potentially be the 'best course of action' (albeit some seriously limited ones) and you would still continue to get the mass of persons who would say that it's still contrary to their expected/personal agenda and still go off and do 'their own thing'.

There's zero buy-in to concerted group efforts. We're all smarter than each other anyways, right?

Seriously - I don't know why I am even wasting time writing in these threads. WTF do I know anyway

Honestly though, a scheduled conference on the matter that would go as far as renting a conference hall at a central hotel, complete with agenda and a process to come to a decision on what strategic direction to adopt as a community would really be something that I suspect would be considered 'serious action'...