2013 – Page 40 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Are They Trying to Hold the Senate?

So when reader Adam Z sent me this article today about Harry Reid promising Moms Demand Action a vote on a gun control bill in 2014 before the midterm election, I started to wonder if it’s actually not a strategy to keep control of the Senate.

Here me out as I kind of walk through a possible strategy. It could be simply crazy talk or crazy like a fox. You decide.

For those of you who don’t have the list memorized, here are the red states with Democrats facing re-election or with an open seat currently held by Democrats in 2014: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Now, most people would think that after you already failed to garner enough votes right after Newtown, you definitely don’t want to force another vote that fires up the Second Amendment vote in an election year in these key states.

But, The Nation assumes way too much about the promise with its vague promise of timing.

Reidâ€™s prediction now of a pre-midterm election vote on gun control is crucial, because it means senators who oppose background checks will have to declare their opposition in the heat of a campaign cycle.

They seem to assume that such a vote would happen when Democrats could be challenged on the issue. Not likely. Reid could be promising a vote after primary season and before the general election. By doing that, he can keep challenges from the left at bay, and he knows that even lefty voters who support gun control aren’t going to run into the arms of Republicans over it. Those same liberal voters will likely be motivated to turn out on other issues – preserving Obamacare or whatever the topic of the day is at the time. They may have an opinion on guns, but they don’t vote guns. Reid knows this.

In the meantime, by holding a vote closer to a general election, Reid now gives the Democrats cover to run on a platform of being a strong pro-gun vote. They can say that their presence in the Senate keeps the crazy wing of the party from running wild on gun control. There’s an element of truth in it. Gun owners would just have to decide if they trusted that specific candidate enough not to stray once re-elected, and lower information gun voters may not think far ahead when voting.

A gun control vote fight post-primary and pre-general would also mean that NRA’s human resources – staff and volunteers – will be tied up with drumming up opposition to the vote instead of focusing on the early stages of the general election. It means that endorsements to signal where volunteers should help out will likely be held until the last minute after the vote. It means less time to be on the air with commercials and less time to buy other advertisements and do mailings. Don’t even get me started on the magazine publishing deadline. That will be a nightmare in itself.

So, while a 2014 pre-election vote may get the pro-gun voters energized, Reid may be calculating that it may not hurt the Senate Democratic candidates in those key states. So while the left may be cheering this news, it may not be nearly as exciting for them as they hope it is.

Anti-Gun Communication Strategies

Folks have been linking a document created by anti-gun communications firms and pollsters, and the short summary can really be described as using emotion in place of facts and discussion about political reality.

Sebastian and I read through it and had a few deeper observations about the document.

One of the main messages of the document is that gun control advocates should demonize NRA as much as possible to motivate their own base. However, they must be careful because the general public isn’t as frothing at the mouth as their base. In fact, they acknowledge that the fact that the public respects NRA and doesn’t see them as the force of evil that so many gun control advocates try to make them out to be.

A message they want communicated to their base is that the NRA is to blame for their unsafe cities. Their suggestion could essentially be described as telling gun control advocates to tell people that it’s not the neighborhood criminals who make their lives so dangerous, it’s the NRA. Interestingly, they suggest specifically blaming the NRA rather than using the broader term “gun lobby.”

This is kind of funny since gun owners tend take attacks on the NRA to be attacks on them personally. In fact, one strategy I use in my pro-Second Amendment outreach is framing attacks on NRA as attacks on individual members or on Second Amendment supporters. If a random group issues a statement that says “The NRA isn’t rational and can’t be trusted,” then the headline version of that for my reporting might be that they “claimed law abiding gun owners aren’t rational” or that “Second Amendment defenders can’t be trusted.” (I’ll still include the original quote and context, but the shortened version sums up the intent of the comment.)

They very specifically tackle the issue of saying things like, “I’m not trying to take away the Second Amendment.” I don’t think that’s because they are advocating for honesty, but rather because they realize that it raises questions in the listener’s head about what taking away the Second Amendment would look like and whether something like a ban on guns would violate it. They don’t want people thinking, only feeling. (That’s very clear in repeated instructions not to get caught up in trying to argue with facts or logic, but rather to emphasize emotion above all else.) A great example of this being counterproductive was the rant by Star Jones on Piers Morgan where she fell into this trap: “I support the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. But I’m telling you, the guns, we need to get them out.” She just made her audience think about the fact that while she’s claiming all her policies (some mandate to “reduce the volume of guns” and charging $5,000 per round of ammunition) were in line with the Second Amendment, yet she admits she wants to get rid of guns. Even a pretty low information viewer could recognize why this doesn’t seem very “support[ive]” of a constitutional right.

In terms of defining the concept of the Second Amendment, then encourage gun control advocates to be very confident in declarations that all Second Amendment cases have been settled, and they effectively allow them to pass all of the gun control they want.

There’s much more to discuss in this guide, but I think I should break those out into separate posts on specific policy communication strategies and why language matters to low information voters or those who simply don’t follow our issue.

Balanced Article on Machine Gun Shoot

From Slate. I appreciate it when reporters legitimately make an attempt to step outside their comfort zone. Of course, at least one of the gun owners he interviewed shows why our own people are a bigger impediment to advancing gun rights than the gun control zealots. See here:

Darwin Edwards and his friend John Paskey left the Big Sandy Shoot early. The 4,000-mile round trip from Kentucky, Edwards says, was worth doing once. He says the machine gun community proves the efficacy of rigorous background checks: “Machine gun owners are one of the few groups of people who can prove they’re not felons.” Ammo remains “really just not available because of the feeding frenzy” fueled by the gun control legislation. But Edwards isn’t worried. He’s got enough ammo to last him the rest of his life. He’s deeply disappointed that the Senate didn’t pass gun control. “The majority of people in the country, including me, were in favor of that particular bill,” he says. “I don’t see how any thinking person would vote against it.”

He’s got his, so who cares, right? If only that attitude were rare as hens teeth.Â “Machine gun owners are one of the few groups of people who can prove they’re not felons.” And you know what? Despite that, they still banned them. Once they get the rest of us out of the game, we’re not going to be able to stop them when they come to confiscate your now ungrandfathered machine guns. This guy had the nerve to call other gun owners uneducated. He’s a world class fool, blind to the realities of this issue.

Gun Fun Across State Borders

The New York Rifle & Pistol Association is raising money for their legal fund to challenge the SAFE Act by raffling off a machine gun shoot for two in Pennsylvania that even includes a night at a local hotel. That’s a pretty good idea to look at surrounding states to have fun shooting events when it has been banned locally. They feature video of previous shoots by the company:

Rain and Drought

The beginning of this week looked like a promising news cycle from a gun blog standpoint, but it’s quickly dried up. I usually hold a few things in reserve for days when things aren’t as active, but now we find ourselves clean out of anything to put up. Hopefully something interesting will come across our in our sources. Well, but not too interesting. Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for.

Newtown Residents Seek Guns

The Wall Street Journal isn’t just looking at the rise in gun sales since last December, they are focusing in on sales in Connecticut and permit applications in Newtown. Not surprisingly, it is on a similar track as the rest of the nation.

Third Circuit Upholds New Jersey Carry Restrictions

The case is Drake v. Filko. The third circuit has generally been terrible for the Second Amendment, and not really too surprising since although it’s major state is relatively pro-gun, the circuit judges are going to tend to be drawn from Philadelphia, and reside there.

Here, we conclude that the requirement that applicants demonstrate a â€œjustifiable needâ€ to publicly carry a handgun for self-defense qualifies as a â€œpresumptively lawful,â€ â€œlongstandingâ€ regulation and therefore does not burden conduct within the scope of the Second Amendmentâ€™s guarantee.

Wow. Talk about lazy. Because that’s totally what Heller said. So there it is folks. There is no right to carry a firearm in the State of Pennsylvania, New Jersey or Delaware under the Second Amendment as far as our federal judicial overlords are concerned. Poof! Gone. Unless the Supreme Court steps in to fix it.

Lies and Cash: MAIG’s Strategy, According Former Member

We’ve heard the stories before about how MAIG fudges on telling prospective mayors about their real agenda when they sign up. But one New York mayor says that not only did they not even mention gun policy when they signed him up via petition for safe communities, but they did not seek permission to use his name and apparently only removed it after presenting him with promises of campaign cash from Bloomberg. Highlights:

In 2009, while attending a statewide mayoral conference, I was asked to sign a â€œpetitionâ€ affirming my support for safer communities. …

The organization never asked for permission or asked for approval to use my name to promote their agenda. Never was any information disclosed to me about the organization being in favor of gun control or that they would use my position as Mayor to spend millions of dollars to try to take away the rights of legal gun owners. …

After several attempts and requests to be removed, I did finally receive a call from a representative of the organization attempting to â€œbuy me offâ€ by promising political donations in return for my continued membership.

It was not until I declined this payoff, that my name was finally removed.

Read the whole thing for a bit more that highlights just how far Bloomberg will go to continue the perception that his little group of mayors fully supports everything he signs their name to without their knowledge.

It’s Evolution! You Can’t Argue with Science

Over at Common Gunsense, Joan Peterson has been breeding a special batch of extremist ramblings lately. Like a train wreck, you can’t help but look. In this episode, she takes a position against teaching kids gun safety. She notes:

Little boys in particular seem to love shooting noises and pretend shooting at an imaginary animal or toy. It must be something in the DNA of male children ( or testosterone?). But real guns are not toys.

It’s evolution, and who can argue against evolution? It’s science! You’re not a science denier, are you Joan? I thought that was for the kinds of people who support the corporate gun lobby.

See, without weapons, humans make pretty tasty cat food, and our early ancestors and cousins wereÂ regularly preyed upon by big cats, birds and other predators until hominids evolved large enough brains to fashion weapons.Â Like most other species, our young instinctively engage in play that aids in honing critical survival skills, just like you notice in kittens. Even typical youth past times like baseball have an evolutionary angle revolving around weapon employment. If our species’ most sophisticated weapon was still the spear, young boys would still be picking up sticks and engaging in play that involved throwing them, probably at each other. It’s instinctive behavior, because humans whose children engaged in this behavior survived better than those whose didn’t, and that’s evidenced by the fact that our species, the weapon making species, is the only hominid species to survive.

The first step in bringing those aggressive instincts under control is to first acknowledge that they exist, and then teaching the young the discipline and responsibility necessary to control them, and use them in a socially responsible manner. For many boys and girls, the discipline required by shooting is a healthful outlet for what they are naturally are drawn to. Denying them the opportunity to explore that part of themselves under proper supervision would be a grave disservice, especially to appease a paranoid and fearful prohibitionist movement, that would rather pretend such things just aren’t true.

The Other Gun Debates…

Sure, we highlight the legal and political debates on guns, but we all know the internet was created by Al Gore so that we could debate such topics as 9mm vs. .45.

NRA is hosting a somewhat similar debate on fan favorite long guns over the next two weeks. Today’s face-off is the Springfield M1A SOCOM II vs. the Kimber 8400 Patrol. With 2.5 million fans, this could be like an internet gun debate on steroids. I bet the staff there are sitting back with the popcorn to see how this topic drives discussion in comments.

My vote is for the image on this post – cake gun.

Then ExUrban Kevin decided he wants to open discussion on what kind of gun should James Bond really be carrying. From one of the points made in the post, I had no idea that Princess Anne was nearly kidnapped once.