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SewTexas wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2019 9:52 am This isn't CJ, this is McNutt, everything I have heard about him is that he is one of the nicest, gentlest people you would ever want to meet. This vidoe shows that it was nothing more than a friendly conversation on the side of the road.

McNutt does appear to be a vey nice guy and reasonable and well-informed in that video. I ended up accepting that video at face value. I was merely stating my initial response based on my mistrust of Grisham, and ONLY because his name appears at the front end of the video once it got past the introduction. It’s like generally not trusting gas station sushi, but maybe THIS gas station has very good sushi, despite being labeled "Gas Station Sushi" right on the box. I may enjoy this particular sushi experience, but I’m still generally mistrustful of anything labeled as gas station sushi. If this video had not had Grisham's name at the front end, I wouldn’t have responded the way I did.

Mind you, I am FOR constitutional carry, absolutely and without equivocation. What I am NOT for is the way that some people deliver the message. McNutt seems to be doing a good job, and I hope he continues along the lines of what he’s doing. OTHER people, not so much; and CJ Grisham is among them. Not everybody has the personality for successful grassroots activism. Militant behavior can taint a message that is not in and of itself a militant message. Constitutional carry is about liberty, and liberty isn’t militant because it is the default order of things. It takes intentional human beings to screw it up and place limitations upon it. The best way to communicate the message of Liberty is with sweet reason and a friendly demeanor. Unless your intention is to deliberately provoke a violent response, strident militant exhibitionism - which has been CJ's historical record - alienates more people than it convinces; because it changes the listener's focus from the message to the activist....particularly when that activist is behaving aggressively while making an ostentatious display of being armed. It is well within human nature for the as-yet neutral observer to become alarmed at what he is seeing, and to conflate the message of liberty with erratic and possibly dangerous behavior. THAT is why there’s no room for hotheads in constitutional carry activism.

But other than having a poor regard for people who I believe do more harm than good in gun rights activism, I am all for constitutional carry.

apostate wrote: ↑Sun Apr 21, 2019 2:41 pm

The Annoyed Man wrote: ↑Sun Apr 21, 2019 1:59 pm I’m inclined to be suspicious of any video made by, or featuring CJ Grisham - who has only a tenuous grasp on reality.

Care to elaborate?

This appears to be DPS body cam video. So unless CJ became a DPS trooper, I'm not sure what it has to do with video exposing Dennis Bonnen and his wife as liars.

The Annoyed Man wrote: ↑Sun Apr 21, 2019 1:59 pm I’m inclined to be suspicious of any video made by, or featuring CJ Grisham - who has only a tenuous grasp on reality. He has a history of only promoting that part which makes him look heroic, and burying those parts that make him look like a fool. It's my observation that the latter instances outnumber the former.

This particular video doesn’t show him, and it seems pretty straightforward. But as a general thing, I think that Grisham has done more harm than good for increasing the acceptance of 2nd Amendment rights by politicians.

What I meant is:

A. I am generally mistrustful of CJ Grisham because I think he is an unstable individual. He has a LONG history of placing himself at the center of controversies between police and open carry advocates, and has even broken federal law on camera (I.e. open carrying in Oklahoma subsequent to a disqualifying conviction here in Texas). His imprimatur is on the beginning of THIS video, so I was initially mistrustful when I started to watch it.

B. I ALSO said (above) that THIS video seems straightforward. In other words, it doesn’t seem like CJ's usual fare. I’m happy for that.

I’m not sure how much more elaboration is necessary. CJ's own record right here on this forum, in debates with Charles Cotton - who had done WAY MORE for the cause of the 2nd Amendment over a period of decades than CJ Grisham will ever accomplish - is the record of an excitable, not entirely stable person, not entirely grounded in reality, with little understanding of what happens in the halls of gov’t. I don’t mean that he’s hallucinating or anything like that. I mean that he has a singular view of both human nature and how the world works, which is not in sync with either reality. It comes off - to me, anyway, as well as to many others - as egomaniacal and off-putting.

You catch more flies with honey. He never learned that most fundamental of social skills; and that makes him a poor witness for the 2nd Amendment, in a world in which we need to win more allies, not make more enemies. I’m actually glad that he seemed to have taken a step back from things for a couple of years. If all he ever does going forward is to make videos like this one, then he might be able to make up for some of the damage he’s done in the past.

I hope that is enough elaboration, and yes, Bonnen DID lie.

I’m inclined to be suspicious of any video made by, or featuring CJ Grisham - who has only a tenuous grasp on reality. He has a history of only promoting that part which makes him look heroic, and burying those parts that make him look like a fool. It's my observation that the latter instances outnumber the former.

This particular video doesn’t show him, and it seems pretty straightforward. But as a general thing, I think that Grisham has done more harm than good for increasing the acceptance of 2nd Amendment rights by politicians.