New Member, new to shooting, still finding my way

[Sweet Express]

Hello, I have been shooting less than a year. I love the feeling of taking ownership of my personal protection as a single women. I am struggling to find my place in the gun community though. I am a liberal democrat, and often feel like an outsider. I wish there was a way to leave politics out but you all are a pretty political group And of course I understand how politics play a part of gun ownership. By joining I would like to find a way to bridge the gap, help me understand and find points of commonality. I look forward to the discussion and maybe meeting some of you at the range!

[solarguy]

I don't care what politics you believe in. I'm not a republican either. But, neither am I a democrat. As a libertarian, they are all 98% the same to me anyway. On top of that, I'm pretty much a one issue voter. If somebody wants to put a dent in my gun rights, I don't care if there is a D or an R next to their name. As far as being a gun owner, the best thing that ever happened to you in the last decade was the recent appointment of justices to the Supreme court that respect the second amendment.

To state it in the most inflammatory way possible, they all hate me, only half of them hate you.

In real life, in person and on this forum, I have found the vast majority to be pretty well behaved and respectful. It's important to classify internet talk as worth reading, but not worth getting worked up about. Think of it as a bad but amusing soap opera and you'll get along fine.

Welcome to the club!

[westcliffe01]

There are a lot of different people who have an interest in guns, self defence and the proper place for governance. If you care about being free to protect yourself and this extrapolates into a lot of other laws like the "gun free zones" where self defence is basically denied to anyone who enters the premises (in compliance of the law - unlike mass shooters), then over time you are likely to be sorely disillusioned with our politicians on the right and the left.

I don't believe that all politicians are stupid, and I dont think they came up with stupid laws for the sake of being stupid or ignorant. I think that the gun free zone law was done intelligently and deliberately because they knew that it would result in more mass shootings. Yes, that suggests that all of the people who voted for those bills and continue to support them are OK with all of the deaths that result because of the way that the laws attract people with evil intent to our schools, churches and other mass venues like theatres. If politics was fact driven, we would know from the examples provided by Israel and other countries that gun free zones are deadly, and your best safety net is armed law abiding citizens.

If you are able to confront the lies and misinformation being put out by the media, Democratic leadership and to a certain extent, republican leadership, you may ultimately question your loyalty to either party when they are clearly not acting in your best interest, or defending the constitution. (see recent stories of Ohio Governor being overruled by his legislature when he demanded a gun confiscation bill) https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...-gun-bill-veto

I'm a green card holder, not a US citizen, so I cant even vote and I became a green card holder at probably one of the worst possible times for becoming a new gun owner, which was a couple of weeks prior to Sandy Hook. The assault that has taken place on the 2nd amendment since then has been breathtaking and in a lot of states, the situation for gun owners has really worsened a lot, all up and down the east and west coasts. Here in MI we have not really seen much positive or negative, despite having had a republican majority over the same time period.

It sounds like you have taken the first step, which is to take control of your own protection and that is great. Many people always think it is someone else’s responsibility to protect you and the fact is that the police are always the "second responders", because you are always the first person who is either to take action yourself or become a victim. Kudos for choosing not to be a willing victim.

[DrScaryGuy]

Welcome to the nuthouse!
We're mostly nice. We have a few trolls from time to time. There's a lot of right-leaning thinking here, but there are also plenty of us that are pretty moderate or even a little liberal on many topics. And some of us are surprised to find ourselves being called racists/conservatives/etc now that many democrats are pushing a hard socialist agenda.
Unfortunately, you're on the wrong side of the state for most of our pro-gun events. There's a muskegon pistol and rifle club that is affiliated with us, but I haven't heard much about them. Maybe somebody in your area will host something one of these days.

And even though I'm a little more moderate than some folks around here, I'm also pretty much a single-issue voter. I have never seen any gun-control measures that will actually help, even though they strip away rights from us good people. Unfortunately, plenty of people in both parties are willing to compromise and work against my right to self defense, and then demand I be "reasonable" about my views on the 2A. Usually the Rs are a little more likely to be pro-gun, so I tend to vote for the most moderate R I can find now that the D tent has little room for anything other than whatever the currently populist agenda is pushing.

[Stugotts]

Welcome to the group
MAGA

[Sweet Express]

Thanks!

[Sweet Express]

Thanks! I've checked out the Muskegon Gun club- nice people. I am moving to Grand Rapids soon and there are a lot more things happening there.

[CircuitRider]

to MGO discussion forums from Marysville along the river.

[.38special]

Welcome to the forum, and soon to gr.
Hope to meet you around the range

[esq_stu]

. . . I would like to find a way to bridge the gap . . .

Learn all you can - shoot a lot, learn about guns: how they work, ballistics, reality vs Hollywood - stay focused on the practical and avoid the political. The politics will sort themselves out to some extent.