The NRA is a Republican ancillary organization.

[X_Digger]

90. Always had them. Always will.

Grew up in rural Virginia, fourth generation UMWA miner. My great-grandfather was a union organizer at Maetwan and War Eagle, a justice of the peace then deputy sheriff for forty years in Buchanan County, and was a crack shot. Both he and my great grandmother kept a handgun on their nightstands. 38 special for him, 32 for her.

This is me as a kid with him-



My grandfather spent twenty-five years in the mines, my father 15 before having a rock fall on his back, putting him out of work for five years. He still has a cough that makes people cringe when they hear it.

I walked the picket line in 1989 at the Pittston strike, I went door-to-door for Jackie Stump, handing out write-in sample ballots. We faced security guards armed with automatic weapons, and were routinely harassed by Virginia State Troopers. We were beaten, kicked, shoved, arrested, had our cars vandalized, our utilities were cut (in the dead of winter in the appalachian mountains), and were ran off the road by coal trucks.

I worked three years above ground and one below before getting out.

And as for my bona fides- as I said recently to Paladin, who never misses an opportunity to declare us gungeon regulars 'right wing'--

[div class='excerpt']I daresay I've done more, in more campaigns, in more states to support our party than you have. I was in a union picket line before I could stand. I handed out buttons and fliers when I was ten. I've worked on four different campaigns for representatives in Virginia (3 delegates, one senate). I was the co-chair of the Young Democrats at the Clinch Valley College of the University of Virginia for three years. I registered at least a hundred dem college students to vote during that time.

In Tennessee, I was assistant to the secretary of the democratic party of knox county for a year. Between 1993 and 1996, I can't count the hours I spent canvassing for candidates, ferrying people to polls, helping register poor and minority voters, and lobbying for democratic measures in the city council- whether it was additional funding for city facilities, decrying racist policies of the KPD, or helping raise support for a new bond initiative to support the emporium (performing arts center).

In 2008, I put 650 miles on my wife's car ferrying mostly elderly and poor voters to the polls- from the time early voting started all the way through the day of the election. I phone banked and stuffed envelopes for Bill White in 2010, as well as putting another 400 miles on our vehicles. I *still* hear from a few of those elderly voters when they need help (the most recent was a korean war vet who needed a ride to the VA center in Arlington.)