From Dave Kopel’s book, Aiming for Liberty: The Past, Present, And Future of Freedom and Self-Defense
The story of the nonexistent “cop-killer” bullet begins in 1976 in Massachusetts, when a handgun-confiscation initiative was defeated in a landslide. Then in 1982 in California, a handgun “Freeze” initiative also lost overwhelmingly. The gun-pohibitiation lobbies began to realize that they wold have to work more incrementally, rather than pushing for prohibition outright.
The prohibition lobbies also realized that the police were one of their worst problems. Wile a few police chiefs or sheriffs could always be found to support prohibition, the vast majority of police — both commanders and line officers — were extremely skeptical of gun control. Something had to be done to turn the police (or at least their Washington lobbyists) against the National Rifle Association.
The something, ironically, was an obscure type of ammunition invented by police officers two decades before. These bullets were known as KTW bullets, after the initials of the three persons who invented them: Dr. Paul Kopsch, and police officers Daniel Turcus and Don Ward.
The chapter goes on to describe what these so-called cop-killer bullets were actually created for, which was shooting through barriers. It also mentions their appearance in the Lethal Weapon series of movies, which is probably responsible for driving public misconceptions about guns during the late 80s and early 90s than a lot of others.
The problem with this gambit is that it worked, at least for a while. The anti-gun groups’ ability to drive misconceptions and public opinion on the gun issue used to be a powerful weapon against us, but it’s diminished quite a bit in the past decade. As much as I’d like to give new media the credit, I think it comes down to a lot of factors, one of which is changes in the shooting culture from the sporting orientation of older generations, to a more self-defense oriented mindset that started with the baby boomers in the 80s and 90s. There was a lot of changes in policing in the 80s and 90s as well, which may have helped the gun prohibition movement to drive divisions there as well.
I was an anti converted by new Media. The internet allowed me to read about guns and cross-reference things while still in my PJs in my College Dorm room. This information was near 100% contrary to what I thought I knew about guns from watching movies, and TV and print news.
That being said the look on an anti-gun shooter the first time they set foot on a firing line and see the control and politeness of the fellow gunnies, as well as the concern for safety…not tobbacco chewing good-old-boys in cowboy hats saying “Yeee HAW!” while nearly killing their friends in a hail of Automatic gunfire as it’s more often depicted in the old media has done a LOT for the shooting community.
The bottom line is the Anti-Gun crowd still today preach that guns are somehow magical and can only be used for mayhem. It’s hard to buy that crock of shit when you’ve just spent all day plinking cans and clays on the berm and meeting friendly people who are pleased to see a new shooter.
“Guns are just for killing? So what the hell was I doing today?”
I should have said all the credit. New media certainly is one of the factors involved.
My own conversion pretty much mirrors Weer’d’s. It was Wikipedia, gun blogs, reason.tv, mises.org, and others like them. Keep up the good work! We have the facts on our side and we preach empowerment in the place of fear. With this, the reasonable can’t help but be drawn to us, while the radicals look more and more peculiar.
Best way I’ve found (or heard of) to convert the non-hard-core anti’s is to show them a (well-run) range; preferably take them to shoot.
+1 Ian. As the Hard-Core Anti won’t read facts on gun control and guns.
But a well run gun range and some quality and fun shooting instruction sure does correct their warped perception of reality.