It’s tough being a gun control advocate these days, I guess especially if you’re a professional one. Miguel shows us how the Brady Campaign is having difficulty accepting the Black Friday gun rush, by suggesting gun ownership is on the decline, despite polling indicating otherwise. The news we reported on yesterday, on investment analysts suggesting that increased gun sales represent a permanent cultural shift, really can’t have sat well with our opponents. I think they are essentially correct. It’s becoming OK again to be a gun owner. Much of that change, I think, has been in the past three years.
I think the primary reason our opponents are failing is because they have not been good advocates. They’ve shied away from making their arguments in forums they don’t control, and thus have largely removed themselves from serious public debate, which in the Internet age is a lot more important.
Gun control advocates don’t have much to celebrate these days. They haven’t seen much love from Obama, and the latest dog and pony show being brought forth by Kirsten Gillibrand is going to be dead on arrival. They’ve been spread so thin they are forced to retreat to college campuses as a last stand, while groups like NRA keep educating college students on the Second Amendment and shooting. No wonder they are resorting to lashing out any way they can.
NOTE: We also call this post how to clear out a lot of tabs in a short space :)
Don’t worry, they’ll pool their folding money and hire a push poll that says they were right all along, and post a link to it every time dozens of gun owners point out what a bitch of a time it is to find a free lane at the gun club these days, and how hard it is to actually TALK to the guy behind the gun counter at the gun shop.
BTW one of the local shops here in Mass has actually put in one of those deli number hoppers and they have an LED “Now Serving Number ###”. And no, its not a coy joke.
“They’ve shied away from making their arguments in forums they don’t control, and thus have largely removed themselves from serious public debate, which in the Internet age is a lot more important.”
That’s because they’re a bunch of liars. Without TV and newspapers to control their message, any rational person can see that they’re full of it. The very fact that they hate discussing the issue should be a red flag that something is up.
“They’ve shied away from making their arguments in forums they don’t control, and thus have largely removed themselves from serious public debate, which in the Internet age is a lot more important.”
Indeed, look at Common Gunsense or at the LCAV Facebook page. Joan Peterson moderates all comments because she says she gets too many abusive submissions, and LCAV does not tolerate any dissenting comments, removing them as quickly as possible.
Attempts to control the debate in such heavy handed ways result is avoiding the debate completely, assuming that the anti-rights people are interested in debate.
That’s any of the Anti’s FB pages, not just Joan or the LCAV.
There is at least one notable exception to the “Reasoned Discourse” on FB-New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. I post there regularly and have never had a post deleted. They typically get 40-60 comments on a post, mostly form our side, but they don’t moderate your comments if you’re engaging in argument and not attacks.
I think, that in addition to actual gun purchases, you could consider purchases of gun paraphernalia, cases, safety/protection gear and accessories during Black Friday and Cyber Monday and you’d find that a good majority of people in this country are either gun owners, know a gun owner, or shoot.
And most people are also completely, utterly, OK with it.
Shocking! /sarcasm
And don’t forget that people like me, with a concealed handgun license, in states like mine that exempt you from the “background” check, like Texas, don’t show up at all in the NICS numbers.
Anybody got a number on how many concealed carry permits/licenses there are now?
Thinking on this, I believe the beginning of the end for the gun-control crusade actually was the defeat of California Proposition 15 back in 1982.
http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_15,_Handgun_Registration_Initiative_(1982)
I think that the landslide defeat of a handgun ban, in California of all places, instructed the gun-control advocates that they were losing the battle for public opinion. That the public, if given the opportunity, would not side with the ultimate goal of the gun-control crusade, which is a ban on handgun possession and stiff restrictions on all other firearms.
Ever since then I think the gun-control movement made a deliberate strategic decision to advance gun-control by deception instead of by openly proclaiming their goals. That was the whole point of the ban on so-called “assault-weapons”. That was why Handgun Control Inc. changed it’s name to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. That’s why the Million Mom March was astroturfed for it’s short existence. That’s the reason for the numerous false-flag anti-NRA “hunter” organizations such as The American Hunters and Shooters Association. And the reason for phony “scholarship” such as Bellesiles book, Arming America.
And the scary thing is that for a while the deception plan was actually working and advancing gun-control legislation. Of course the primary ally to this deception scheme was the advocacy of the infotainment-establishment of Hollywood and the News Media. But a big lie can only work for a limited time before collapsing.
The explosion of internet access to the voting public I think did put the final nail into the coffin. Now we can share information and react more quickly than the dinosaur News Media. The big lie doesn’t work anymore in such an environment.
Game Over.