In the digital age, many of us turn to Facebook for updates, to keep in touch, to share photos and spread news. Snapchat is used by public relations professionals as well as teenagers. Twitter is used by Millennials and daily by the President.
While it’s no substitute for face-to-face interaction, Facebook does create a sense of community—and that extends to the gun community. This comes with a warning: Some Facebook groups are ugly. They are downright hateful, racist and un-American. Let’s stay far away from those. But many others are about support for gun rights, the shooting community and spreading the word about new guns, ammunition, training and technique. And sometimes through Facebook you can meet someone close to home to connect with at the range. OFten the articles that are on this site you’re reading now are shared hundreds of times on Facebook, and we appreciate that!
On Facebook, you can find women’s groups, father’s groups and LGBT groups. Some of these are public groups, meaning you can see their page and posts without having to belong to the group. Others are private, meaning you can ask to be added as a member.
When posting, always be aware of your own privacy settings. Like it or not, guns are political. Understandably, some people have jobs that may conflict with their gun ownership. So posting to one’s personal page about the politics of the Second Amendment or gun control may not be a smart option. And many wish to stay out of politics on a personal level. This is where secret Facebook groups come in handy.
You can’t just “join” one of them. You have to be invited by someone in the group and then approved for admission by an administrator. Each group has a different set of rules, but they most often include that you must not reveal the existence of the group or its members; you may not repost from the original group (thereby avoiding revealing the group or one of its members). Some secret groups allow for full freedom of expression; others, not so much.
If you’re interested, do a search on Facebook and you may find something to your liking. Once you are in a public group or semi-private group, you are much more likely to hear about and be invited to the secret groups. For now, I’ll leave you with a quote posted on Concealed Carry for Women by Annie Oakley: “I would like to see every woman handle firearms as naturally as they know how to handle babies.”
