Author: Sebastian

Joe has an observation about our favorite Brady Board member, which makes him ponder:

If the lack of critical thinking skills was something that common it makes me wonder how we ever made it out of the dark ages. And much more important is the answer to this question, “Is the prevalence of Peterson Syndrome evidence we are headed into dark age?” Freedom and enlightenment may have been just a short twinkle in the big picture of human history.

It really is kind of amazing. How many Jeffersons, Madisons, or Adamses were there ever in the world? Clearly not enough, and I don’t think our elite today can even live up to their example. I don’t think people’s lack of critical thinking skills is harbinger of a dark age, because I’m not sure your average people had much in the way of that even in the age of enlightenment.

Ultimately, we still aspire to critical thought in the sphere of the public debate. If this were not the case, the Brady folk wouldn’t need to do studies, or publish papers in an attempt to convince the greater public to accept their political agenda. Instead they’d be doing things like performing exorcisms in houses they’ve recently removed guns from in order to get rid of the evil spirits that inhabit them. While I think many of our opponents certainly have the menality that would enable such thought, when it comes to convincing others, they know they have to go the way of reason and data, which probably has something to do with why they lose today… modern means of horizontal communications has allowed many of their assertions, accepted as truth by dead tree media, to be challenged and swept away as weak arguments.

TTAG has been promoting the Starbucks Buycott, which is greatly appreciated in terms of helping get the word out to a wide audience. One minor note, however: I’m not really on board with the paying with $2 bills. I’m not going to say it’s a bad idea, but nor do I think it’ll accomplish much in terms of influencing Starbucks. Corporate is the one that will make the decision about guns, and I can promise you what denominations people pay in isn’t among the things reported up through the chain of command. All paying in $2 bills is going to accomplish is making the person handling the money ask you for something else, or be annoyed they have to deal with an uncommon denomination. It’s not likely to percolate up to the decision makers. But Barron Barnett came up with a great variation on the two dollar bill idea that I think works:

Shove the 2 dollar bill in the tip jar. There will be 0 complaint for that. I can understand being annoyed if you were needing change. Taking their few remaining 1′s and giving them 2 dollar bills would be a PITFA.

Putting a 2 dollar bill in the tip jar and telling the Barista why would go a LONG way in putting a smile on their face.

I think that’s a pretty good idea, and I’ve actually done that to get rid of two dollar bills in the past. Everyone appreciates a tip, even if its in an oddball denomination. One thing I would encourage folks to do is take pictures of their receipts, post them online, and send a note to corporate along with a link to the receipt, telling them that you’re a gun owner, and you appreciate then staying out of the gun control debate. Don’t say you appreciate them being pro-gun or supporting the Second Amendment. The corporate guys at Starbucks don’t want to be pro-gun or anti-gun, and aren’t going to be comfortable being seen as either. What they want to do is sell more coffee, and a good way to do that is staying out of contentious political debates. What the Brady and NGVAC folks want them to do is take a stand, which is exactly what we don’t want them doing.

Extrano’s Alley points to some new polling showing strong support for the Second Amendment and gun ownership among Americans. The poll also shows low support (30%) for ownership of semi-automatic firearms, but I’m not too pleased with how that was polled. They first asked about handguns, and then rifles and shotguns. They asked about semi-automatic firearms as a separate category, which probably greatly confused people into thinking it was something else other than ordinary rifles, shotguns and handguns. The vast majority of handguns sold today are semi-automatic, as well as large numbers of rifles and shotguns. It seems hard to believe support for ownership would be so divergent if people understood the question well.

A bill that allows any soldier, regardless of age, to be able to get a Florida Concealed Weapons Permit, has passed with a unanimous vote. Robb notes that means even the die hard anti-gun folks didn’t want to touch this one. Like I said, it’s hard for the anti-gun folks to find friends these days.