Rolling Stone Article on Larry Pratt and GOA

The big question I have is why is the “American Independent Institute” funding a story about Larry Pratt and Gun Owners of America, and why now? I don’t make any secret that I’m not a fan of either Pratt or GOA, and this article outlines a lot of the reasons why. But I’m at a loss for what motivated it. Rolling Stone has been doing a lot of hit pieces on guns lately, at least one of which was supremely stupid. If the purpose was to make gun owners and the gun rights movement look like far-right lunatics, I don’t think the article succeeds at that, since it continually highlights the differences between GOA and the rest of the movement. It does succeed at making Pratt look like a lunatic. But what do our opponents have to gain by attacking Larry Pratt and GOA in such a manner, and attacking now? Are they hoping to raise his profile in the hopes to keep using him as a foil? Hardly seem to be the way you’d go about it if that were your goal.

Related posts (automatically generated):

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  2. Backpedaling
  3. GOA Not too Cozy With Pink Pistols?

17 thoughts on “Rolling Stone Article on Larry Pratt and GOA”

  1. A foil in the sense that extremists who support GOA also are members of the NRA? Smear them by extension. “See what the NRA allows into their ranks! The same ‘big tent’ view like the GOP!”.

  3. They want to make Larry Pratt a proxy strawman for entire the gun community.

    Just as the dumbest Open Carry advocates are so easily used by them as proxies to represent the entire carry community – both open and concealed.

    Even pointing out how he differes from the mainstream gun community works in their advantage — “Even those lunatics {i.e., mainstream gun owners} think he’s over the top!” and “We aren’t actually fanatics – see, we don’t slap around the sane gun owners!” are the messages that get across to uncommitted people, even though the actual words used don’t praise the mainstream gunnies or actually call them extremists to be contrasted with the {Overton Window’ed} “sane, reasonable, and moderate” gun control advocates. They get to eat their cake and have it too.

    It’s a very subtle, and very good, propaganda technique.

  4. Reading Rolling Stone is like reading a comic book version of the Huffington Post. These people already have their minds – such as they are – made up. They hate guns. They hate America. They hate themselves most likely. The purpose of such an article is simply to affirm the reader’s belief that “those people” are dumber than they themselves are.

  5. Christian reconstruction doesn’t appeal to me as a Catholic, so I must say that if he really holds true to that mindset I really hope that he keeps it away from the politics of gun rights.

    That being said, I can’t fault GOA for having an article like this published. The gun control movement has their zealots and this article will do nothing to change that in our minds, but this article wasn’t written for us. Who is the target audience here anyway? Rolling Stone has written several other anti-gun articles, so this doesn’t surprise me.

    1. I don’t think GOA had anything to do with the article. The big question I have is what the antis are up to with publishing this, and publishing it now. “Who is the target audience?,” is a good question. I don’t know. Given that it’s published in Rolling Stone, probably not a very large one :)

        1. “We need some more votes,” Reid said. “But it may be good to bring this up just to send the American people another message about how 85 percent of the American people can agree on one thing, but it doesn’t mean a thing to the Republicans here.”

          It is interesting that they think gun control is a winner right before an election.

  6. If that were the case why don’t they go after Mike Vanderboegh? Oh, wait…

  7. I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who thinks more about the meta-strategy of publishing this stuff than the actual individual articles.

    In the era of “Journolist,” Sharyl Attkisson’s allegations of extensive coordination between politicians and reporters, the contents of the MAIG email dump showing their media coordination efforts, etc I don’t think it is unreasonable to suspect that these types of individual articles are in direct response to marching orders from somewhere else, or at least coordination with a broader strategy. The next logical questions are “what is that strategy” and “who is promulgating it?”

    1. Who gives the orders??? OBAMA(or the “shadow”govt.,take your pick).
      The R.S. articles are for the low info voter and “progressives” to lead and renforce thier world view…such as it is.

  8. Exactly what we would expect from stone grasshoppers. We can see what mj does to the brain.

  9. After checking out the really silly ‘most dangerous guns’ article at Rolling Stone, links there lead me to some the other gun stories they have printed recently. And I was shocked that the story about the growing number of women gun-owners was pretty positive overall and relatively unbiased. Even when the ladies served up an AR-15 for the journalist to shoot, the journalist admitted enjoying shooting it.

    Perhaps the larger culture is changing in our favor. Even at the heart of the enemy, the anti-gun press?

  10. Hate to say this (maybe its just me) I see martial law and/or another war(for U.S.) coming down the tracks……….

  11. Why is there a big social media and news push for gun control right now? The answer to the question is simple. They are planning another mass shooting by the end of the summer and they do not want to make the same mistake they made last time. They want to prepare the public and get them as close to accepting gun control as they can. This way, the mass shooting will push them over the edge.

  12. Regardless of what Rolling Stone’s motivation for their article is, they are doing us a favor by exposing Pratt and GOA. Even though they seem to have missed the mark by a little bit, GOA is first and last a front organization for (in order of probability) the Religious Right (100 percent certainty); Christian Dominionism (almost certainly); or Christian Reconstructionism (high probability).

    What that means is, while they may always take what appears to be the hardest pro-gun line, there are any number of other issues they value far more than gun rights, and so their will always be another agenda at work in the background.

    This is most apparent if you watch what individuals (legislators, candidates) they will expend the most energy for. They will almost always have impeccable credentials of activism on top-level Religious Right issues like abortion, while usually having so-so records of lip-service to gun rights. So, supposing there was a choice between a candidate who had a proven, pristine record of performance on gun rights, and a candidate with a record of activism on say, pro-life or anti-gay issues but only talk on gun rights, GOA would find some reason to promote the pro-life/anti-gay candidate over the pro-gun candidate with a proven record.

    Don’t take my word for it. Do a search on all personalities associated with GOA (e.g, their old mouthpiece Herb Titus) and see what their backgrounds include. Also, look at some of their past employees (e.g., Dennis Fusaro) or political consultants (e.g., Mike Rothfeld) and see what their connections and records have been.

    We really can’t afford fellow-travelers who use gun rights only for a front to promote their other issues.

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