Brady Problem in a Nutshell

Seth Godin I think hits on the reason the gun control movement has difficulty finding a voice today:

Enormity doesn’t mean really enormous. It means incredibly horrible.

The problem with enormity in marketing is that it doesn’t work. Enormity should pull at our heartstrings, but it usually shuts us down.

Show us too many sick kids, unfair imprisonments or burned bodies and you won’t get a bigger donation, you’ll just get averted eyes.

If you’ve got a small, fixable problem, people will rush to help, because people like to be on the winning side, take credit and do something that worked. If you’ve got a generational problem, something that is going to take herculean effort and even then probably won’t pan out, we’re going to move on in search of something smaller.

Not fair, but true.

I think the Bradys have a big enormity problem.  Some of it isn’t their fault.  I wouldn’t discount the effect it had on the population, either consciously or unconsciously, that a handful of extremists with box cutters and a plan managed to topple two of the largest man made structures on earth, kill 3000 people, and start two wars that would kill many thousands more.  What good is gun control when you can kill thousands with box cutters?   The Bradys even pile on to the enormity problem by pointing out there that guns take 10 9/11s a year.

In contrast, our movement has gotten very adept at fighting one battle and one issue at a time, and small, achievable steps.  Godin has a good point that people don’t want to be on the losing side.