I'll keep this brief, because today isn't a day for meta.
But we've added a lot of members in the few brief hours since I created the group, and I just thought I'd throw out a few comments to new members before anyone goes off on a tear.
The group was created with the same sort of thought as the candlelight vigil at the White House.
To highlight the continuous tragic cost to the nation of the Second Amendment in its current, ambiguous form, and the twisted lobbyists who work frantically to keep the dollars for guns and ammo flowing, no matter how many Americans end up killed far earlier than they should have.
What it was not created for is to be a clearing house of people who want to spend their time fighting with the RKBA group. As I've said in other comments today, I consider them misguided, but I also am not in favor of people simply going in to RKBA diaries to try and start flame wars with them. I'm not going to sympathize with anyone who gets HR'd into oblivion because they went in to an RKBA diary with intent to antagonize.
Gun violence is a serious public health issue that is not only not being addressed in this country, but is a direct result of an industry that wants to protect its profits, and is happy enough to watch 30000 Americans die a year as long as those profits flow.
Obviously, there are other public health issues that also deserve attention, and are doing even more damage, such as the obesity epidemic induced with similar disregard for the damage done by the industries that (literally) feed it, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We don't have to focus on one such issue to the exclusion of another.
So I'd like to see how many folks we can get on board, try and keep attention on the continued damage done by gun violence, and locate places where policy decisions have reduced gun violence, and then try and get members to start advocating locally, to bring such information to their elected officials, and try to convince them to adopt measures that will help keep more Americans alive longer.
To follow the News, to be a Community, and to take concrete Action.
7:10 PM PT: Btw, folks who signed up earliest and got bumped to editors - feel free to add new members, I'm having a hard time keeping track of new requests to join. And folks who request, if you don't get an invite within a day or so of your request, pester me until you do.