outreach Archives -

Great Idea From Dean Weingarten

Dean Weingartern writes for Ammoland.com. He and I have known one another for years. His most recent article covered the seminars and workshops held at the NRA Annual Meeting in Atlanta.

After noting that these seminars contain valuable content – and he is absolutely correct on this – he added:

It is impossible for one person to attend all the incredible content available. There is top-of-the-line content available for a wide variety of interests. This correspondent suggests attendees look over what is available and prioritize what is most important to them. During the three days of the Annual Meeting, this correspondent was able to attend most of the three seminars.

I know I only was able to attend the NRA Clubs and Associations workshop on Friday. I went to that one because clubs and associations will be one of the prime ways that the NRA will use to rebuild membership and thus revenues. There were plenty others that I wished I could have attended. I really love the seminars dealing with historic firearms and their use in certain wars and battles. The seminars led by Major John Plaster and historian Martin K. A. Morgan are some of the best around.

Dean made this suggestion with which I wholeheartedly agree. If it can be done, this would be a valuable outreach effort by the NRA.

This correspondent would like to see all of these seminars recorded and posted online by the NRA. It is a shame to see the exposure limited to the few hundred people who may see it during the event. There are serious issues about copyright and content that would have to be worked out. The technology is there. Perhaps, it could be done on a voluntary basis by the people giving the seminars. These seminars offer world-class information that deserves a wider audience.

Cost would be a factor. The issues about copyright and content that Dean points out would have to taken into consideration. That said, I think it is an idea worth pursuing.

Operation Gideon’s Trumpet

Tragedies can bring out the best and worst in people. I won’t go into the worst because it is all too common. However, the best can be there. Following the attack on the LGBTQ community in the Pulse Nightclub massacre, the firearms community stepped up to offer firearms instruction and familiarization to those in the LGBTQ community. It became what is now Operation Blazing Sword.

Our guest on the Polite Society Podcast this week was the Pew Pew Jew, Yehuda Remer. You can listen to his interview here starting at about the 8:40 mark. One of the things that Yehuda is doing in the aftermath of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel is to offer both training and advice to those in the Jewish community who are thinking it is time to consider being armed. After our interview with him, Yehuda was hosting a Zoom call with 18 participants to give them advice on what to consider when searching for their first firearm.

Yehuda’s outreach got me to thinking. Why can’t the rest of us in the gun culture, Jew or Gentile, step up and do the same for our friends and neighbors in the Jewish community?

Since the name Operation Blazing Sword is already taken, I would propose something like Operation Gideon’s Trumpet. I am far from a biblical scholar so if you can find a better example from the Old Testament, go for it.

So reach out to your Jewish friends, work colleagues, neighbors, etc. and make the offer. You don’t have to be pushy about it. You could just say If they just want to know more about becoming armed you would be happy to help. It could start out with just going with them on a visit to a gun store. Alternatively, you could take them to them range and let them shoot your guns and ammo.

I don’t know if this will go anywhere but we will never know if we don’t try.