Roberta, Sebastian, and Tam report on the nanny’s in Indiana getting their panties twist over Tannerite.
A few years ago almost exactly the same thing happened. A T.V. station (WSBTV) made a video whining about, as Roberta said, “Scary–Go-BOOM!” They got a politician to talk about how terrible it was and how he was “going to do something” about it.
I sent them an email and within 24 hours the video was taken down and we didn’t hear anything more about it. Not even from the politician.
This is a little different case in that they didn’t use any of my video for their whine piece but the same principles apply. Here is a starting point for your letter to the T.V. station. Modify it a bit and you have one for your legislator:
You recently produced a video about a legal product used by thousands of people every year and found people willing to say it scared them and you. For you to engage in a such a biased and even bigoted attack on a legal product used in a legal manner is exceedingly offensive to me and thousands of other people.
I can’t imagine what you were thinking. Would you show video of people using guns to legally hunt, shoot tin cans, or put holes in paper targets and then contact the opportunist politicians because you were worried someone might use their guns to commit a terrorist act? Or how about showing someone having a glass of wine with dinner or drinking a beer in their backyard? Would you demand the government do something about this because of your concerns about drunk driving?
When I was growing up my family was able to, and did, buy dynamite, blasting caps, at the local hardware store with no special license or transportation requirements. We paid for it, picked it up out back, put in it in the trunk of the car and drove home with it. That the average person can still acquire explosives easily, legally, and safely is a testament to what a great country we have. It shows that not only the government is subservient to its citizens but that its citizens are responsible and can be trusted.
If you had demonstrated these explosives were used in thousands of crimes each year I might think you had reason to be concerned. But you did not do this. You could have used that same product and those same video to show what a great country we have. You could have shown what unique freedoms we have and how those freedoms are not being abused. Seattle King 5 Evening Magazine did that with this video: http://www.boomershoot.org/2005/KING5.wmv. But you didn’t do that. You merely demonstrated you are a Puritan–afraid that someone, someplace, is having fun.
Thoughtful examples of how to deal with so-called “progressive” narrative to situations they find ‘deplorable’ by people not prone to “think” but instead “feel” are what we need more of in the debate about freedom; not just the second amendment, but everywhere.
First win the culture debate (listen-up Republicans).
Thanks Joe.
I think the letter would be better if it didn’t start off with such an antagonistic paragraph. You catch more flies with honey. I would soften the tone. When you start off sounding like a belligerent old man, it doesn’t help your cause, particularly when you are dealing with people who “feel” instead of “think.”
I attended the Wanenmacher Gun Show in Tulsa this weekend. It’s quite an event; more than 4,000 tables, guns everywhere, perhaps 15,000 people, and nary a shot fired.
There were a number of tables selling materials to make explosive targets. Five bucks gets you a small plastic bottle with ingredients which, when mixed, make 8 oz of explosive. Mixing is easy: just pour one small bag of stuff into the another bigger bag of stuff, shake it up for a minute, set it in place, step back a safe distance, and shoot it.
Yes, of course I did. The one I bought will make eight small pill bottle sized targets and is reactive to .22 LR rounds.
Perhaps the worst part of all this is that reporter in question is proud to own a couple of AR-15s and shrugged off gentle questioning with the assurance that it was “only” going to prevent people under 18 from buying Tannerite, limit sales to adults to 10 lbs or less, and have provision to “keep track of” people buying it.
He’s…biased and ill-informed. The State Senator is a much bigger problem, the #2 Republican in the Senate. #1 needs to talk some sense into him. Or use some other means that rhymes.