I think we’re going to get it shoved you know where. I think it’s only a matter of how far it get shoved you know where. Why? Erstwhile friends are running for the hills. Corporate folks are well known cowards, and it’s hardly surprising that Dicks is going to stop selling evil black rifles. More surprising is Cerberus selling Freedom Group, though I seem to recall they were looking for a buyer before. Freedom Group made substantial investments in the State of New York, an investment they probably figure is now going to be a bust, either because of state action, or federal action.
It is now the case that our backs are to the wall. Many will likely not want to hear this, but our choice is likely between bad and worse. But we have to fight. Our current struggle will determine whether we live to fight another day, or whether in the next several months, we watch everything we’ve built for the last decade fall apart. That is what is at stake now. The more we fight, the less we have to just bend over and let the other side savage us. We can push them back, if we show the resolve, and bring others to the fight.
I have been battling on Facebook. I am losing. It’s emotional. The facts don’t matter “they” want something done to make them feel better.
I will keep fighting, but it not fighting rational people right now. I understand their emotion and sympathize, but to ignore the truth? I am not sure how to battle, when they don’t want the truth.
You don’t fight emotional people with logic – you fight them with emotion.
When they scream “evil guns killed those kids,” scream right back, “If you’d been there with a gun, would you have killed that maniac to save those kids? Why not?”
When they scream “We have to protect our children from armed killers,” scream right back, “Then keep your kids out of public school ‘gun free zone’ slaughterhouses.”
Rational 2A supporters – some, at least – are uncomfortable with this sort of argumentation. But frankly, it is the only way to move people who can only be moved by emotional arguments. You can spout statistics till you’re blue in the face, and it’s like reading Goethe to a goat – it just doesn’t register.
I’m a professional writer. I’ve made my living for decades by telling stories and manipulating readers’ emotions. I understand the power of words, and I don’t hesitate to use that power. As they say, all’s fair in love and war, and if you don’t think we’re in a war, you just haven’t been paying attention.
This is by far the most useful posting on the subject I’ve seen to date. It’s exactly the sort of thing we’re going to have to do if we desire to win, and the time to start doing it is yesterday, if not before.
Logic is irrelevant when emotion is what’s driving this. And I don’t see any difficult “means vs. ends” issues with it.
I’ve been meaning to write something like this for years. I am amazed that the pro-freedom side has been as successful as it has given that the fight has been almost completely logic vs emotion. We have facts and figures, they have dead children and heart broken mothers. We need to come up with emotional arguments and pithy sound bites to back up the logic and facts.
In addition we need to start taking over the terminology used in the debate. Don’t say ‘assult weapon’ (a term made up by our opponents) but ‘military LOOKING rifles’. Don’t say ‘pro-gun’ say ‘pro-self-defense’. For to long we have been letting the opposition define the terms used in the debate.
Facts, reason, logic are all good tools to have on your side but when your opponents are waving dead babies in the air you need something more.
The feeling of “We must DO something” is strong. It was horrific and people want a solution. And they’ll take anything (especially if it doesn’t inconvenience them).
And if it doesn’t work (as we know it won’t). Well at least they can consol themselves that they tried, and they’ll figure they can try again.
John Richardson linked to this Wall Street Journal article which says they’re being pressured by Eliot Spitzer (???) and the notoriously political California State Teachers Retirement System, “which said it is reviewing a $500 million investment commitment to the New York-based private-equity firm.” Which I have absolutely no trouble believing, and doesn’t make them cowards so much as an investment firm that’s following the demands of a big investor.
Time is what we need to play for right now. Time and distance from the event will let the “need to do something” diminish. If we can do that, we can win.
We need to draw a line here. If we give up the ground we’ve gained, we’ll never get it back.
Neither bad or worse is acceptable, and if we can’t hold them off int he political fight, then it’s time to make nice with Mike V. or fade into irrelevance.
I believe that this will be our hour of greatest victory. A time when we were able to turn the tide and actually achieve gains when no one else thought we would.
We will fight them on the Facebook, we will fight them in the checkout lines, we will fight them in the libraries and town halls. We will fight and Freedom will win.
Do not lose heart, friends, the price of liberty has always been vigilance. Today is no different.
–Matt
I approve of this appropriation of Churchill :)
The key thing is not corporate “friends” doing what they need to do to put a short term spin on their PR. The key thing is votes in the House. Nothing else matters.
Let’s wait and see what Feinstein comes up with and start the battle from there. If the pressure is too great for the House to hold, then something may pass. We must let our friends in the House know that how they vote has consequences.
All is not lost, or inevitable, until the event actually happens.
Then be in the ear of your federal and state politico *now*.
GunsAmerica is even calling people out in their latest emails regarding the whitehouse.gov petitions. Not that those petitons are remotely binding, but they do make a point with numbers that may (or may not, as the case may be) indicate solidarity amongst this particular part of the populace.
So Sebastian, you’re saying that the total ban of semi-auto rifles is 100% inevitble? Just what do you expect to be passed? Because you are starting to sound like a defeatist, one of those people that expect the revokation of the 2nd ammentment to be an absolute certainty in the future and their is NOTHING anyone can do about it and some will not appreciate that.
I did not say it was inevitable. Nothing is inevitable. But our lines aren’t looking too good right now.
You still sound like a defeatist.
What do you want to hear? We have to fight even if there’s no hope. We don’t have a choice. We all must do what we can, and do what we must. But victory is not guaranteed. I hate to say that, but it’s just not. But fight we must, and fight we will.
Maybe take some time out and read a little Churchill? The famous speeches at least are on-line, here are one and a second link. There’s lots more, of course.
I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. After all, the media and all the Democratic supporters assured us that nobody was going to ban guns. In fact, nobody even wanted to ban guns. President Obama supports the second amendment.[/sarcasm]
I know, being facetious doesn’t help anything, but dammit, it makes me feel better.
In all seriousness though, if we aren’t strong enough to hold them back and we do wind up with a new AWB, I still like our chances in court of getting it overturned. After all, it’d be hard to argue that the AR-15 doesn’t pass the “in common use” test from Heller.