I can believe a lone story about NRA’s demise, but when two sources write essentially the same story, someone is shopping this meme around. The first question is who, and the second question is why. As Joe points out, NRA has had a banner year, and so did other groups. Who’s passing these articles around to media outlets is hard to say, and speculation wouldn’t accomplish much. But I will speculate on the motive. No one wants to sink time, resources or money into a cause that they think is lost. This is aimed more at convincing the supporters of gun control than it is anyone else. If they are to build a grassroots movement, they first have to convince people that the cause is not lost, and that it is winnable. I suspect a lot of groups are seeing interest in the topic fade. The media certainly seems to have moved on to other issues, given that I’ve seen a precipitous drop in news stories about gun control. This is worse news for our opponents than it is for us, so you get the Baghdad Bob routine. This is probably a good sign things in the gun control movement are not as swell as they are making things out to be.
Bloomberg’s money can still certainly do a lot of damage, but only in the sense that the ads he finances can help paint candidates and politicians as being out of touch with the mainstream, and only as far as he can conceal who’s financing the ads. What they need genuine grassroots activism, but that’s hard to come by when people think gun control is a lost cause.
UPDATE: The Philadelphia Daily News throws in their two cents as well, on the demise of NRA meme: “Have six sweeter words ever been uttered?” I can think of six words to describe this article, but none of them are sweet.
UPDATE: The Guardian joins the meme.
I think this is a good example of the leftist group-think found in big media outlets. One says something, all the rest read it and a bunch recycle it.
Recall, that this is what they’re saying after they failed to get anything though the Dem controlled Senate.
Imagine the stories they’d be writing if their private sale bans had gone through.
This right here shows the folly of “just give them what they want”.
It also shows they’ll make a silk purse out of any sow’s ear. But they’ve got a lot of experience.
We were crazy thinking the ATF sold Mexican cartels guns
We were crazy when we said the IRS was targeting the Tea Party.
We were crazy claiming collusion before Journolist came out.
Yes. They are collaborating. The simplest explanation in light of their track record is that someone is pushing this meme. We all know who it is, MAIG.
The local rag picked up a national story rehashing the “Gun manufacturers take no responsibility for gun violence” story over the weekend.
The story itself was clear most of it was old news, mostly about the PPLCA. It had a decent rehash of the Zumbo-ing of Smith and how the rest of the industry, even the “high end” manufacturers standing together and not joining the caving stopped that angle of attack.
I think they are desperately throwing stuff, even old stuff, at the wall to see if any of it can get traction.
Bit off topic, but a few news outlets are reporting poisoned letter being sent to Blomberg. One to the mayors office and one to Mai’s office.
In case anyone isn’t already aware:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList
Bloomberg started a shop specifically to influence media on gun control. He has since expanded it into other nanny-like forays but guns are his big push.
Pretty clear these are coming from his group; it is exactly the thing they were formed to accomplish. They are smart and capable, which is something our side has not seen from them in a long while.
It’s also overtly elitist by being open only to mayors.
But elitist in a socially aproved way. Which fits into the whole gun control theme.
Where of course these “public servants” speak for the will of their proles. Thus with that structure they don’t need to worry about how few their numbers are. They can say “Well our Mayors *represent* X number of people.”
It’s a rather handy hack. And you can guess that’s why they picked mayors instead of another goverment post (you have to balance number of positions in the country versus how high profile. There’s not many Senators to pick and country board members are too “low ball”).
Also by picking mayors Bloomberg also adds a symbolic head given his control of NYC.
That and even if he only gets 2% of them to sign on it still is a big number to flaunt.
4 Governors sound alot less impressive than 200 mayors, even though those Govs probably represent more voters.
You’re also going to get most of the big cities.
I hope they start believing the NRA is dead – because that will just sabotage their efforts.
Thinking the opposition is far weaker than they are is self-defeating.
It’s not a good sign they even have to float something like this. A few weeks ago we were listening in on an OFA call, and one of the people on the call actually questioned whether gun control wasn’t a lost cause, and not worth expending energy on. I think this meme is aimed squarely at that audience. I suspect they are hearing that meme in more than just a few places, and this pitch is really a counter-meme.
There are many things said in the world of political activism that are motivated by fund-raising, and not by a group’s nominal goals. Often their leadership gets confused by that, equating the one thing with the other, but sometimes it is totally cynical.
I don’t think any meme that “the NRA is dead” will be promoted for very long, because the NRA is the boogeyman monolith their camp needs to keep hate alive as a motivator. Without the NRA they would be lost. They would be like Hitler without a Great Zionist Conspiracy.
Be careful where you express that line of thought; They might just shift focus from the NRA to JPFO….