Actually I got that statistic from the "gun control" related Gallup and Herris polls of that period. (Zogby was not around at that time.) This effect of the Kennedy and King assassinations

on "gun control" polls generally lasted from 1968 to 1970. Because the National Rifle Association started putting out effective counter propaganda when the threat was at its highest these poll numbers in favor of banning or highly restrictive (must show need) permits for handgun ownership started going down after 1970.



Basically we have to follow the example the NRA set in the 1968 to 1970 period if we want to keep our herping rights (including field herping).



1. We should put out newspaper and "letter to the editor" type stories showing the positive aspects of herp keeping. (with hots we can emphisize the new pharmicuticals that might come as a result of studies of venoms by "amateurs" as well as PHDed professionals. Also emphisize that people who keep wild animals of all types RESPONSIBLY do tend to be more environmentally and animal welfare consious than those who never have exposure to them and want to "ban them" out of fear. Point out that such a ban would neccessitate euthanasia of confiscated animals something that goes against both the animal welfare and animal rights philosophies.



2. Emphisize the unenforcability of outright prohibitions ON ANYTHING using the Christian Fundamentalist experement with alchohol prphibition in the 1920s as your model. This prohibition even though it was a part of our Constitution while it was in force was basically killed by a process of jury hanging called "Jury Nullification" in Libertarian, Constitutionalist and PaleoConservative circles. What happened was that most basic possession and basic drinking cases wound up in one hung jury after another after another throughout the period. Therefore we wound up with the alchohol laws we shoud have had in the first place (drinking age limit of 21 years and graded licenses and permits for selling and/or publicly serving alcholic beverages) because even the anti booze crowd was getting tired of paying tax after tax after tax for all those hung jury trials. The gun people in 1968 through 1970 showed that handgun bans could result in the same "hung jury" problems as alchohol prohibition did (mainly in PaleoConservative and Libertarian literature rather than directly in gun literature.) and were very successful with this counter propaganda line.



3. Yet a third method of dealing with anti herpers I heard about recently on a Constitutionalist/Libertarian forum I also post to (again dealing with the gun issue rather than the herp issue) would be to "out" any acts of moral terpetude and/or scandal on the part of anti herp keeping politicians, zoo administrators or other such ban sponsors and force them to have to devote more time defending their "reputations" than making anti herp laws in the first place. (Anyone seeking power over people by banning ANYTHING probably has a skeleton closet that would put a horror movie to shame.)



So here are three ways we can deal with the anti herpers that are completely non violent IF we have the spine to use them.

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