I’m sorry. I know I should be respectful. We live in a constitutional republic. All citizens have protected rights. Gun control advocates have the same right to free speech as gun rights advocates. Anti-gunners are just as free to mischaracterize, mislead, delude (both themselves and gullible listeners) and lie as pro-gunners are to tell the truth about guns. So … good for them. I guess. But man are the antis idiots. There, I said it. In this case, I’m defining idiocy as believing your own lies. Specifically, the belief that gun rights advocates are, to a man (not women), white racists. It’s the operative idea behind this piece of lunacy forwarded by Atlantic writer James Fallows . . .
[Note: Fallows didn’t write this. It’s a message he received which he deemed important enough to share in his column How to Turn Panic Over Terrorism Against the NRA (Hint: Arm Muslims).]
One sentence in your article reminded me of an idea a friend and I have had for a couple of years to combat the NRA. “[The President] highlighting the disproportion between America’s sky-is-falling sensitivity to the slightest potential risk that could be defined as ‘terrorism’ versus its blasé acceptance of unending home-grown killings.” What if gun control advocates combined the two and exploited that terrorism sensitivity?
One evening, my friend, who happens to be of Indian and Sri Lankan descent, noted the potential hypocrisy of many Second Amendment supporters in that all hell would likely break loose if he walked the streets with an AR-15.
Over drinks, we imagined a video project whereby Muslim Americans legally purchase and carry firearms within the bounds of existing laws. However, maybe in the introduction they are wearing hijabs, maybe they are speaking Arabic, maybe they are praying to Mecca. And then with the help of body cameras, you can watch them purchase firearms at a gun show without a background check and maybe watch them buy 5 guns in a month. Pursuant to proper permit, you can watch them carry, either concealed or openly, such firearm(s) to their mosque, to the park or to the grocery store. Lastly, you can watch a group of Muslims Americans fire off hundreds of rounds a minute legally at a gun range.
Additional videos could feature other minority groups which many 2nd Amendment supporters might consider members of the scary “other”. A 6’8” African American male taking an assault rifle to a Black Panther meeting! A bandana and tattooed clad Mexican American with a gun in his low rider. The point being to highlight the deficiencies in the existing system with Americans that NRA members might fear, or at least not be sympathetic to. You can also explain how real undesirables, existing mass murderers or individuals with undocumented mental illness, exploited the system and/or stockpiled firearms and ammo.
If the videos got big enough, it would be interesting to see the NRA’s response as supporting everyone’s right to easy access to guns may alienate some of their members and supporters.
Are Fallows and his ilk so myopic, so cloistered in their urban setting, that they don’t know that gun rights advocates believe in gun right for all Americans, regardless of their age, sex, color, creed, religion or sexual orientation? Let’s hope so. We need all the help we can get to get as many Americans as possible to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. In other words, bring in on, Jimmy boy!