I understand now why actual "people walking in the streets" protests don't work.
As I got off of the train at the Marta station and walked down the street from the Capitol with some friends today, I held my sign up high while trying to show support to the cause. While walking down Courtland street, I noticed there were at least three types of people joining out cause by the time we made it to the marble steps.
First. There was the tight knit family. They were cute and all but they weren't really able to do anything because of the kids. Whenever one of the cute little (5-8 year old) kids would get bored and cry in the cold. One of the parents would have to distract them by walking away from the crowd with them, which in turn removed about 20% of the population by the end of the afternoon.
Second. There were the people protesting but really didn't understand why. "Obama wants to take away all our guns", "I need to keep my shotgun because I don't want some black guy attacking me." (Direct quote) Yes, they have a right to complain. Yes, they have the right and cause in their head to be right there along with us trying to influence the state on allowing us to keep safe. But when you are so scared that some jackbooted masked police state is going to come along and have an enforceable law where you are no longer allowed to have any firearms at all is just ludicrousness.  Learn and educate yourself before you come out into public. Some day they will realized how bad they were making our cause look by flocking to the news and spouting off at the mouth that Obama is the devil
Third. The paramilitary/redneck that came out of the backwoods looking for a fight. What rock did these idiots come out of? Better yet, Why did someone turn it over and let them out into the world? When you show up to a peaceful and rather well organized political event, you don't show up in woodland camo pattern BDUs, carrying the largest caliber handgun your belt can hold up. This was never meant to be a "Bring your gun and show it off" event. Yes, I was carrying. I always do. But you couldn't see it. Hell, I checked myself out in the mirror at the 5 points station just to make sure I wasn't printing in anyway. When you are wearing a huge hog leg .44 magnum in a worn out leather gun slinger belt, you are going to get looks. You are going to get attention. Lots of it.  But not the kind of attention you want when you are trying to show the world that there are sane people out there that just want to have the legal rights to own and shoot their rifles or pistols whenever they want in a safe manner! Luckily there weren't that many of these to be had. I guess the ones that were posting online about how they were going to be coming down from the North Ga mountains got lost once they passed the 85/985 connector and just stopped off at Bass Pro to stock up on fox pee.
Who would give these people precedence if they all just look and/or act as if this was just another social event to be seen at and/or proved that the misconceptions that gun right supporters were just as crazy as some mainstream media would have the public believe.
Oh, a fourth. People like myself. This group made me so proud. There were so many well dressed and professional looking people out that were just as mad as myself. We made our message clearly heard. David Shafer even talked to a couple of us after a while which was really respectable of him.
Look, I know that what we did today was just a symbolic drop in the bucket but maybe, just maybe the crazies were overlooked and the seeds of a rational thought were planted in some of the more close minded decision makers of our state.
It has been a very long day. A good day.
Goodnight and sweet dreams. Where ever you are.