It looks like the city of Chicago thinks they can solve their crime problem with Twitter. Of course, being city bureaucrats who are convinced that just one more gun control law will solve all of their problems, they only want to hear about more gun control proposals.
The City of Chicago is asking residents with ideas on how to get illegal guns off the streets to share their thoughts — in 140 characters or fewer on Twitter. …
Those who think they know how to cut off the flow of illegal guns into Chicago are being asked to tweet them with the hashtag (hash)whatifchicago.
The best submitted ideas will be debated at an Oct. 11 panel discussion.
This sounds like a fun little hashtag for gun owners to join. #WhatifChicago prosecuted criminals? #WhatifChicago allowed the law abiding to defend their lives?
I’m sure you guys can come up with many more…
#WhatifChicago obeyed MacDonald?
#WhatifChicago repealed it’s unconstitutional gun laws, making guns legal
#WhatifChicago removed it’s unconstitutional gun restrictions, thus making guns legal? There would be no illegal guns then!
Not to get so pedantic as to spoil the fun, but you do recognize that this involves a simple psychological trick, intended to connect participants to the issue and to increase their desire to resist guns, don’t you?
Actual experiments have been performed, that have demonstrated that if you can get people to participate in some tiny, token gesture (e.g, putting a tiny decal in their front window) you have a much higher probability of getting them to accede to a far more demanding and intrusive request in the future (e.g., putting a gigantic billboard in their front yard.) The tiny gesture psychologically links them to participation in The Cause.
We (gun owners) see this used all the time, with things like completing phony “questionnaires,” or participating in online “petitions.” Usually the immediate motive is our participation in fund raising and/or contact/address harvesting, but the people doing it also know its future value, via our now-established psychological connection to the people doing it, and their niche in the cause. It’s use is almost always far more cynically motivated than participants believe.
I explained the same to some folks who scoffed at Team Obama asking for a paltry $3 from those who had supported him in the past: you pay $3, and you are about 100x more likely to show up to vote.
They were floored at the simplicity of it, and suddenly didn’t see it as a sign that Obama was in dire straights. Now they are scared by it and watch the number of “low dollar voters” for signs his electorate is waking up. Too late. They are awake.
Excellent example!
It surprises me — maybe it shouldn’t — how many people can’t see that the motives behind what is going on, often (usually?) are not what they appear to be, from face value.
From the throat-cutting I have seen going on between activist groups in the past couple years, to acquire contact lists (email and/or snailmail) I’d guess most of them would gladly pay twice $3 for a fresh, live name; especially if the contacts have pegged themselves as True Believers.
I read recently that Ralph Reed is claiming to have something like 17 million names to use in a nationwide campaign effort; I have a pretty good idea where some of them came from.