My point is that the government claims it needs to break encryption to protect us from terrorists. Republicans tend to push that anti-terrorist angle pretty hard. Given that most activist gun owners are Republicans, they might not be all that supportive of cryptography.

Libertarian gun owners definitely support both gun rights and crypto, but that's a smaller group.

You can only carry out the "election suicide" strategy if you have enough popular support. Until then you're stuck with what the EFF does: education and legal action.

I think you'll find a lot of gun owners who are Republican think the party leadership is out to lunch on some issues, and frankly opinions on side issues in the party have changed multiple times. Witness a lot of the MJ debate.

> You can only carry out the "election suicide" strategy if you have enough popular support. Until then you're stuck with what the EFF does: education and legal action.

Well, education and legal action are fine things, but they will not get you to where you want. They need to get over themselves and get a booth at the next NRA convention and maybe a booth at some gun shows. A nice catch phrase linking the protection provided by gun ownership with the protection offered by encryption would be a nice bonus.

I agree with all of that, and those sound like great ideas.

If the EFF would rather not link the issues for fear of alienating some supporters, then maybe some new organization could.