Glenn Reynolds goes over the Taxonomy of gun control in response to the CSM article about Obama’s divide and conquer strategy. Remember, the real enemy is ignorance, not anti-gun folks. The anti-gun folks just garden in that manure. The problem our opponents have is, while there are certainly moderate gun owners out there, you’re not going to convince the vast majority of them to push gun control. Their best bet is finding lefty apparatchiks that have some plausible claim to be gun owners. You know, like this tool.
Year: 2013
NIJ Paper Being Picked up by Media
Quick, Quick, Find Cover…
It looks like New Jersey Democrats are desperate to find political cover for passing gun control since every single time they turn around, it’s people opposed to more gun control who are swarming the State House in Trenton. Having these pro-gun people show up in Trenton doesn’t fit their narrative that everyone in New Jersey clearly wants to regulate the gun culture out of existence, so they have put out a plea to Democratic groups to help them out in pretending that their members are absolutely, without question, motivated primarily by gun control.
One thing that was glaring at this week’s hearing was how vastly gun safety advocates were outnumbered – by about 50 to 1 – by supporters of the NRA and gun manufacturers committed to preventing any new legislation no matter how reasonable. …
The Assembly leadership has asked for a better turnout from the gun violence prevention side for the vote on Thursday.
I love how they basically admit that they aren’t at all motivated on their own concerns to attend, it’s simply to follow the instruction of Democratic lawmakers who need to make it appear as though they have support.
Oh, and if you want to know who else is involved in trying to create a visual of more support for gun control? Obama. Yeah, his team is going to work in every single state – even New Jersey. There is no gun control that’s too extreme for them to push.
CBS on Adam Lanza Motivations
CBS is reporting that they have talked to law enforcement officials who say that they believe Adam Lanza was acting out a video game fantasy where he believed that each person he shot was simply adding up to a score in his sick mind. They also say that they have evidence that he became obsessed with another mass murderer, and that he may have been hoping to top that body count of 77.
In addition to living out a video game massacre scenario, they also say that Lanza picked the school as his target because he knew it would be an easy target to attack with large clusters of people. He did apparently fire a couple of rounds in the direction of the parking lot when police first showed up, but then quickly shot himself.
We’re All Corrupt
A Chicago politician telling me I’m corrupt? (And make no mistake about it, police chiefs are politicians.) Isn’t that kind of like an alcoholic telling teetotaler they’re a dirty drunk?
A Reporter Takes a Shooting Class
A New Haven reporter who had handled guns three times before in very casual ways with no serious instruction decided to actually take a class that would allow him to get a permit to carry. He wrote about his experience, and it turns out that it’s more detailed instruction than most people would get in boating or driving classes:
Despite the relatively short class time [8 hours], a lot of ground was covered. Imagine going to driving school and being taught not only how to drive, but all the parts of an engine and what makes it go. Pear taught us how to use firearms, but also what makes them tick.
He taught the anatomy of a cartridge — bullet, shell and the primer that ignites the gunpowder. We learned the different components of handguns, both revolvers and semiautomatics. We learned the difference between a single-action firearm and a double-action firearm. We learned how to line up the sight of a pistol and how to control breath when aiming.
“We did an entire chapter of what you have to do to fire a shot,†Pear said. “Tons of words — 20 pages of written verbiage, 15 slides in a PowerpPoint presentation — for you to do something mechanical that takes a second to do. We explain every part of that event.â€
The article is actually pretty long, and the reporter outlines what it was like shooting multiple calibers and an AR-15 in a private session he had with the instructor after class.
In the end, the reporter weighs the various reasons that men and women young and old took the class with him and debates whether or not to get a carry license. Ultimately, he decides that carrying is not for him, and the best decision is to put the fees for licensing toward buying his first gun to shoot at the range.
Colorado Magazine Ban, HB1224, Passes House
34-31, with all Republicans and 3 Democrats voting against it. Some of those Democrats who voted for it will be in tight districts, and this is was a tough vote for them. They need to be targeted in the next election. There is no room for sitting on the sidelines now. Now it’s time to take the fight to the Senate.
UPDATE from Bitter: The vote is the same for HB 1226, the ban on concealed carry by licensed individuals on college campuses.
Reasonable Regulation
Surrender your Fourth Amendment rights to exercise your Second Amendment rights. How does something like that end up in a bill by mistake? That’s not something you get through poor definitions:
“In order to continue to possess an assault weapon that was legally possessed on the effective date of this section, the person possessing shall … safely and securely store the assault weapon. The sheriff of the county may, no more than once per year, conduct an inspection to ensure compliance with this subsection.â€
In other words, come into homes without a warrant to poke around. Failure to comply could get you up to a year in jail.
“I’m a liberal Democrat — I’ve voted for only one Republican in my life,†Palmer told me. “But now I understand why my right-wing opponents worry about having to fight a government takeover.â€
Gee, ya think? That was deliberate, and no accident. There’s nothing that’s too draconian for these people when it comes to gun ownership. Get the message: “you should not be a gun owner!” They will abuse you to no end until you get that message.
UPDATE: It would seem it’s also been an “accident” in past legislative sessions.
The Chicago Machine’s Immune Response
State Sen. Toi Hutchinson is dropping out of the race for the special election to replace Jesse Jackson Jr. in Illinois, consolidating support around former State Rep. Robin Kelly. This helps heal a division that would have helped Debbie Halvorson in the primary.
Who is the Enemy?
Caleb asks whether it’s a waste of time talking to anti-gun people. It’s a broad spectrum. For truly anti-gun folks, I would say yeah, it’s waste of time. You’re never going to convince those people, and a lot of them are mouth foamers of the highest order. I’d talk to them only for entertainment value. Beyond that there are people who believe in gun control, but for whom it would be a stretch to classify as anti-gun. Those people might be reachable, but it depends on their level of dedication to their belief. But neither anti-gun types or gun control advocates are the real enemy. The real enemy is ignorance.
Rational political ignorance is something you can read a lot about, and guns as a political topic is no exception to the rule. We have always lost when the gun control proponents are more successful at reaching the ignorant and manipulating them than we are at trying to relieve ignorance. The real threat of highly publicized mass tragedies like Sandy Hook is the re-energization of their own base, and a greater willingness on the part of the ignorant to be manipulated. In terms of talking to people, the best thing we can do as gun owners is try to relieve ignorance, and you can find it everywhere. You can even find it at places like your local gun club or gun shop. It runs especially rampant among people who don’t guns, aren’t familiar with them, and have put very little thought into the topic.
A lot of people on our side often get complacent and cocky because we greatly outnumber the people dedicated to gun control, and the gun control advocates don’t bring much to the table. The former is true, but the latter is not. What gun control advocates bring is a talent for manipulating ignorance in their favor. More importantly, they once again have the willing assistance of the media, and now bring the vast monetary resources of Mike Bloomberg to the table as well. All the focus on demonizing the NRA is part of this manipulation. The goal is to destroy the NRA brand in the eyes of the public, and to damage any lawmaker or policymaker who associates with it. How many people do you think choose who to vote for based on vague impressions and gut instinct about a candidate, rather knowledge actual knowledge of the issues and position? It’s not a small number, and if you wonder why NRA tries hard not to go too far out ahead of public opinion, and why politicians pay any heed to gun control at all, here is your answer.
Unfamiliarity is the soil in which the gun control seed grows, and ignorance is its fertilizer. We have been successful as a movement because of our numbers, and because we’ve evangelized the issue through our own horizontal interpretive communities, and through good old fashioned word of mouth. Instead of having a fake national conversation that only involves political elites and the media, we went and talked to people, took them shooting, and relieved a lot of ignorance in the process. What really keeps people like Mike Bloomberg up at night is the idea, that through more court victories, and further cultural progress, we may be able to begin mission work in his very city, and begin converting the heathen. When we talk, we win.