The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence isn’t very good at social media. They blog once a month, and do so days after a gun-related headline hits the net. Their Facebook page is equally desultory and brooks no opposition: “Note: This page is to discuss resources useful for improving America’s gun laws in order to prevent gun violence. Posts from people who feel the need to repeat specious gun lobby rhetoric will be deleted, and you will be banned from Facebook.” Brady Tweets are late-to-the-party and often consist of re-Tweets from knee-jerk gun control advocates. To wit this, from a composer named HectorGaines [above]: “No good comes from guns…Carson City, what can I say?” It’s an excellent question . . .
What can gun control advocates say? Guns suck, gun violence blows and more gun control is the answer. Hector’s music is excellent (in a disco-synth sort of way), but the Brady Bunch and their followers are stuck playing the same old song. Even though gun control advocates have implemented decades of draconian gun control in liberal urban enclaves (e.g. Chicago, New York City, New Jersey), the facts of the matter create nothing but cognitive dissonance. Especially when it comes to “random” violence.
More specifically, how would more gun control stop a lunatic spraying an IHOP with an AK-47? In some ways, 911 sounded the death knell for that argument. If the entire U.S. intelligence community and airplane security system couldn’t stop 19 hijackers from flying planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, how could gun control laws stop a madman? The U.S. public has come to realize the truth about guns and terrorists: shit happens.
Gun control advocates have a fall back position: the same rhetorical strategy President Obama must use to defend his administration’s disastrous economic policies. Just think how bad it would have been if we hadn’t done what we did.
Never mind that this type of thinking is a kind of madness; people suffering from OCD use this kind of logic to justify ceaseless safety checking (e.g. that the stove is off). It’s fairly effective. After all, how do you disprove a theoretical negative? In the case of the economy, good luck with that. The fear factor is high and the FUD factor (what’s the Fed?) is astronomical. In the case of gun control, however, proving the fallacy of the gun grabbers’ effectiveness is easily done.
I’m not talking about John Lott’s message “More guns, less crime.” Despite Lott’s death-by-stats comparo—contrasting gun-friendly with gun control states, cities and playgrounds (joke)—that’s not a message that resonates outside the gun rights community. A different, more powerful message is filtering through to the American mainstream: more guns, no more crime than before.
There’s plenty of evidence that once the yoke of gun control is removed and Americans are allowed to carry a concealed firearm (even without an extra permitting process) . . . nothing. No blood running in the streets. No mass shooting epidemics. Florida, Arizona, Vermont, Wisconsin, Texas and on and on. Nothing much changes when your average Joe and Jane can buy and carry guns.
Bottom line: guns have been absolved of causing crime. And here’s the predictable, gun control crushing corollary: where’s MY gun?
All politics may be local, but all gun ownership is personal. It’s no good wanting a gun to protect yourself and your family if you can’t have one (a gun that is). But if you can, you do. Not everyone, of course. But millions more buyers have entered the market. And continue to do so. I suspect that most of the growth in concealed carry gun sales are down to existing gun guys and gals tooling-up around town. But by no means all. What does that tell you?
It tells me that more and more people are tuning out the Brady Campaign’s message. The numbers seem to back that up. For example, the Campaign’s Twitter account has 843 followers. TTAG may only have 690 followers, but The Washington Post doesn’t ring us up every time a spree killer unleashes murderous mayhem. By the same token, I’m seeing less obligatory Brady Campaign gun control quotes in gun violence news stories.
Seven hours ago, The Brady Bunch Tweeted Nevada Senator DeanHeller the following message: “Any thoughts on the shooter’s use of an AK47 w/ high-capacity assault mags? Should you cosponsor S. 32 & help end the bloodshed?” The Tweet’s Jeopardy-style (form of a question) tells you all you need to know about the Campaign’s diminishing power in national politics. They’ve traded righteous indignation for simple sarcasm. They’re bitter. Twisted. Out of ideas. And on the run.
Good. And here’s the best way to keep the gun grabbers on the margins: convince someone to buy a gun. Every armed American steals ammunition from those who would steal our right to keep and bear arms. Tweet your followers on your gun stuff. Let them know that “real” people own guns. You get the idea. And so will they.
Robert, I don’t know if you’re a fan of Andrew Breitbart, but he has said something that really resonates with me: “Politics is downstream from culture.” Gun rights activists have won political battles before but as long as culture remained against us, we were fighting a rearguard action (as in, all through the Clinton years.)
I think one thing that’s really happened is that as guns have become more mainstream, the traditional anti-gun messages of popular culture (particularly in television, movies and music) have been revealed to be hollow cliches, utterly without foundation.
9/11 jump-started this, in an odd way, because it revealed to the world that the top-down, “We’re the government and we’re here to protect you” model of self defense doesn’t work in the modern world. As the heroes of Flight 93 proved, it is only when we, as individuals, take responsibility for our self defense, that we are truly “homeland secure.” And guns are a big part of that.
The rest of the world can’t understand that, but not because they’re stupid: It’s because admitting that the loving arms of Big Brother won’t protect, nurture, clothe, feed and house you would require them to admit that their whole world view is wrong, and nobody wants to do that. So, like a horse running back into a burning barn, they cling (bitterly?) to their old notion that Momma State will protect them, and dismiss us crazy yanks as a bunch of bloodthirsty gunslingers.
Interesting site, but why the need to make political attacks like the one on the President and his economic polices (only congress can pass a budget!). This site is about guns not economics.
Martin – individuals didn`t get bin Laden, it was Governmental organisations and the military. TSA is a Governmental organisation, same for the Coastguard. Yes individuals have a role but so does the Government.
Martin does not seem to advocate getting rid of government functions of national security. He argues that failure by government to provide for the public defense, can become a matter of personal defense.
As you say, there is a role, a big role, for government in securing the society, but when it inevitably fails, we, the citizens, must retain the means of backstopping it, and backstopping it with a reasonable chance of surviving the ordeal.
Yes, individuals didn’t “Get bin Laden”, but after over a DECADE of the government not going after him (Clinton even had an opportunity to have him killed and prevent 9/11 but passed on it), I’m willing to bet that individuals working together could’ve tracked him down a lot faster.
Isn’t it too late to kill a guy(without sentence in court) but also doing it 10 years after he (indirectly) killed 3000 people?
“You reap what you sow. Force answers force, war breeds war, and death only brings death. To break this vicious cycle one must do more than just act without a thought or doubt”
I’m trying to fight the good fight with my family in NJ, the east coast haven of anti-gun lunacy. (You can only have a gun if you’re a politician with a criminal record)
My mother is one of those types who hates guns simply because the media and those around her have told her she should, coupled with the fact that she’s never been around them. So I’ve invited her across the border to go shooting a couple times. She hesitantly did, and the experience was half humorous and half sad, the way she thought the gun would up and bite her as if it were alive, or the way she didn’t want to load rounds into the mag because she feared they’d explode in her hands.
But, after a few outings, she’s a bit more comfortable and can hold her own with a .22 pistol at least. So yeah, like a phobia, sometimes gradual exposure can help dissipate baseless fears.
+1
My mom actually bought me a rifle after a few years of gradual exposure. Happy Birthday to me!
I agree with the whole exposure to guns thing. My sister wasn’t open to the idea of guns being in the house and was somewhat afraid of them…didn’t even want her boyfriend buying one (and he’s from Chicago). But I took her shooting sometime back and she loves it…even asked when I’d take her again. My friend’s wife was the same way…afraid and didn’t want him buying a gun. He took her shooting….she wants her own gun now
All that’s needed to stop criminal gun crime is to pass a law forbidding criminals to use guns to commit crimes. it’s the perfect ‘common sense’ gun law. What could possibly go wrong?
Even more “common sense” would be to simply outlaw breaking the law. I’m sure that would work, just like when the League of Nations (precursor to the UN) tried to outlaw war.
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