It’s been all Zimmerman all week, and it’s getting kind of tiring. But open up the Google Alerts and my other sources today, and that’s all that’s in there. But if anything, the case has been good for traffic. We’re up about 50% over previous weeks. That usually happens when gun owners are scared and looking for news. Gun owners should be scared, because the media is now full bore in blaming gun laws and self-defense laws for the shooting. I literally have pages and pages of media stories along these lines.
While this continues to be a gift for our opponents, one things that has traditionally worked in our favor is that gun owners are quite powerfully motivated by fear. Fear stirs the sleeping giant. So I am fairly confident that if we line the ducks up on our side, we can prevent the gun control folks from encroaching on any of our gains. But we have to be heard. We can’t let one mall ninja ruin things for the rest of us.
Last year it was all Gifford all the time for a few weeks. Huffpo was filled w/ ‘outrage’. Then, when the next news story hit, it, and all the ‘concerned people’ who took time out of their valuable lives to type a comment online, went w/ it.
The same will likely happen again. And we’ll still be here.
I think the moment the shooter’s “obviously insane” mug shot was publicized the gun grabber’s narrative failed hard, as well as the more important political “the right killz!” narrative which still blames us for JFK’s assassination. I don’t see that sort of thing happening here, unless there’s some photo out there which protrays Martin as an obvious thug. Can anyone else think of something that might stop this current mess?
I’d also add that the usual grievance mongers are driving this, it’s existential for them ($$$ and such); they aren’t going to stop. And for that matter they have a legitimate grievance if Zimmerman initiated the physical violence.
Can anyone else think of something that might stop this current mess?
Zimmerman getting indicted.
Surely you jest; in fact even a conviction with a death sentence will only further establish that something must be done to prevent this from happening again.
We can’t let one mall ninja ruin things for the rest of us.
That’s something I’ve been thinking about. If our RKBA is only secure until one bad* actor creates a politicized case then they don’t really exist. This is a political game we’ve got to play well; even the courts are going to take their cues from the political Zeitgeist.
* For now I’m assuming Zimmerman was as most unwise, but I’m hesitant to second guess his aggressive paroling without knowing anything about his neighborhood. As I’ve noted before, there are a lot of places in the US which need something like that; in their current state you might say they’ve decivilized. I’m not willing to consign their residents to perdition and I’m unconvinced existing passive approaches are sufficient. (Qualification because if enough people got CCW licenses the odds for criminals would change and I’d expect drastic improvement, although if that just displaces crime….)
Rights are an abstract thing. In the concrete world, they don’t really exist outside of people’s willingness to protect them. Staying free is a constant struggle. It will always be this way, because the power hungry, the people who want to lord over others, will always be there.
Well, yes, of course.
What I mean is a “right” that’s generally acknowledged and isn’t a hairsbreadth from being “taken away” at any moment at every horizontal and vertical level of government. I.e. something a lot closer to the 1st Amendment freedom of speech and press rights, which of course are also always under attack, even very successfully right to their core with McCain-Feingold prior to Citizens United.
E.g. eventually it would be nice if no one could talk about seizing all of our guns without getting the same reaction a proposal to seize all civilian printing presses, computer printers and copying machines would get.