Slurs

Interesting how the other side sees things:

The parallels of how conservatives turned the word “liberal” into a slur, much like gun proponents have turned “gun control” into a detestable concept, is worth considering. Staying on message and repeating it broadly is essential. It’s one of the key reasons why gun extremists have been successful in blocking policies to prevent gun violence in most of the country, despite overwhelming public support for “gun control”.

There is true political power when a movement can take away your opponents language and turn it against them, denigrate their legitimacy and values, and most importantly question their entire identity. Sounds familiar?

Several gun violence prevention organizations struggle with what to call themselves, and where to align their politics and strategy. What words should we use to identify ourselves: “gun safety”, “gun control”, “cease-fire”, “anti-violence”?

There is strong debate between advocates about whether “gun control” is a losing terminology because it is sounds so negative and turns latent supporters off. But here is the dirty little secret: guns do in fact need to be “controlled”.

On “gun safety” the NRA is the undisputed champ with 50,000 certified instructors that teach about 750,000 gun owners per year. How many people do all the anti-gun groups combined teach “gun safety” to? Washington Ceasefire had a student intern type that was going to be doing something along those lines but I never heard from them again after they gave a presentation I went to in about ’98 or ’99. So my guess is the number hovers right near zero.

In Washington State we took the steam out of Washington Ceasefire public appearances by showing up with Ceasefear (thank you Ray Carter for coming up with that name) signs and shirts (I’m a Ceasefear instructor).

The violence statistics after guns have been heavily restricted or banned put a lie to their claiming to be against violence.

The author above admits “gun control” sounds negative and turns off latent supporters but yet acknowledges that gun control is what they really want. Sort of like “White Supremacist” sounds bad but that in fact is their true objective.

I’ve got a name for them–they should identify themselves as Bigots for Gun Control.

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4 thoughts on “Slurs

  1. Well, after a fashion, they are correct… guns do need to be controlled – use both hands, and stay focued on the target.

    May as well do everything you can to ensure you hit what you desire to.

  2. I don’t think there’s an equivalence between the two sides, at least on the disarmament issue. “Liberal” became a dirty word when their former party of choice was flooded with authoritarian socialists who are the opposite of classical liberals. It’s too bad that it’s become a slur, but let’s be honest: if the social engineers didn’t insist on keeping the label while still pushing their agenda, it probably wouldn’t have happened this way.

    That the disarmers have so much trouble with words should be encouragement for our side. They apparently believe that their attempts at manipulating the language are subtle, yet effective. I find this very humorous. Even the most stereotypical, backwoods, gun-toting yokel instantly grasps the joke in a bumper sticker that reads: “Gun Control Means Hitting Your Target”

    The disarmament movement is producing these nonsense code-phrases in record numbers. While the literal meaning of “guncontrol” makes it easy to lampoon, most of the other ones don’t make much sense at all. The “other side” is simply combining “gun” and words with a negative connotation, producing phrases such as “gunviolence”, or “gundeath”. No one is really sure what these words actually mean, even the disarmers. (I commented previously on this, surprised to learn that “gunviolence” has nothing to do with crime or acts of violence.) You have to give a chuckle at the unintended humor of the author, who implies that the disarmament movement would have better success if it broadly repeated a message — a message presumably containing code-phrases that no one really understands.

    The truth of the matter though — or the lack of it — is that disarmers are doing it this way because there is not overwhelming public support for disarmament. That’s why they feel the need to disguise their goals behind code-phrases and work within activist groups with misleading names, (or purchase other unrelated groups and inject a disarmament agenda.) If the pro-gun groups worked in the same fashion, the NRA would probably be called something like the “Washington-area Professionals for Better Defense”.

    To round out this excursion into cluelessness, the author drops the new and rare code-phrase “gunextremist” into the mix. (Romney in gunshop: “Can I get me an extreme weapon?”) I visualize a “gunextremist” as someone who shows up to the range with a NAA mini in .22 Short and a Phelps revolver in .45-70.

  3. I don’t remember where I heard it, but I am reminded of the phrase, “Socialists are chameleons.”

    It’s amusing how they’re constantly looking for ways to repackage themselves in order to fool the public about their intensions, while simultaneously claiming “overwhelming support”.

    I remember during Washington State’s Initiative 676 campaign, they had a web site listing the great number of fabulous people who were on their side, and only a few dunces who were against this hugely anti-gun initiative. Group think is a really big thing for them. I guess if you don’t have reason behind your assertions, you have to appeal to people’s desire for group affiliation or identity.

    I-676 went down in flames– 69:31 as I recall.

  4. I recall the vote as 71:29, but I could be wrong on that. The exact numbers don’t much matter, it went down in flames followed by secondary explosions when it cratered the ground.

    I have lots of inside stories to tell about that particular event but most of them aren’t things I share in public.

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