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Originally Posted by Lawdog
If you think any lobbying is easy, that just tells me you havn't done it. Care to tell us about your lobbying experinece. Since you think lobbiests are inexpensive, when is the last time you hired one and how much did he/she cost.
Your comment that "official responses would happen within a week" just tells me you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Please tell me about how one gets quick and easy positive media coverage and influence public opinion. I can't wait until the general public marches on Ottawa for Airsoft. Give me a great.
LD
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Right. So you ask me to type this, and the next day the thread will be closed. For me I'd say that's a starting point for change, allowing pro-airsoft players to discuss improving airsoft in Canada, on a Canadian airsoft board.
Official responses happen within a week - When the UN was having a 'small arms conference', for instance, several thousand form letters were sent. People sending them did not expect them to be taken seriously, but they did provoke the UN into making press releases specifically to counter the letters they received. If you really want to do this, I'll get you copies of the letter, and show you dates they were sent, and then links to the official UN response.
Again, if you want to know 'guerrila media coverage', you cant' discuss it on this forum. For starters, though, it involves work. People write letters to the editors of whatever publications they read. Editors publish a few, and public is swayed. If you really really cared you could buy advertising in various media. For instance you can buy TV commercial slot during a morning news show for a couple hundred dollars.\
For lobbying I've been volunteering with political campaigns at the provincial and federal level for almost 8 years. Small amounts of money are noticeable. People who donate over $100 get attention. I've known two individuals personally who were involved with lobbying, one who was the lobbiest, and the other who was an entrepreneur. The lobbiest just fell into the job, on the side, and it required no deviousness or subterfuge. He was paid, he invited the MLA to dinner, when time available they met and discussed policy on used-car sales, and made a good case. It is the ability to get 1 on 1 time that you pay for, not bribe money. The other case was a co-owner of a auto salvage company who, along with other owners lobbied for regulations on mercury-switch removal to include a disposal fee into the price of each unit, like tires or batteries.
...Or you could tow the old line, 'It's hopeless, and useless.The world's so big and mean and I'm just a small person, boo hoo hoo. I'm too lazy to write a letter or sign a petition, and I can't spare $50 a year' (which, if I was running this site I'd set a status for paying members, allow them higher functions, and use the money to pay for furthering the sport, and take a percentage for the administration, but such things aren't allowed to be discussed...)