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There they go again. Yup. The Brady Bunch is at it one more once, this time with a well-produced 30-second piece of the finest spin this side of the Pecos, a little opus that hopes to build steam for banning “assault clips.” Wait…assault wha?
In this post-Loughner atmosphere, the Brady Campaign evidently feels as if extended-capacity magazines are their ‘low-hanging fruit,’ and the best they can hope for. Or perhaps they feel as if it’s a riff on the camel in the tent meme – get a ban on large magazines, and it’s only a hop, skip, and rhetorical jump over to a ban on, well everything.
Of course, in order to whip up the great unwashed into a cappuccino-like froth, it helps to ignore things like facts, accuracy, and proper terminology. Hence:
- High-capacity magazines don’t kill people. Nutjobs do. The only thing hi-cap mags do is to cut down on the need for tactical reloads. Worst case, that turns a psycho killing machine into a marginally more-efficient killing machine. Maybe.
- There’s no such thing as an “assault” anything. Last I checked, assault is a verb. Not an adjective. And unless you’re gonna hit someone over the head with the 30-round magazine, you’re not going to be able to assault anyone with it. Won’t work without a gun. Duh.
- A clip and a magazine are two different things, people. Please get them straight. Unless, of course, your goal is to have gun guys laughing and rolling their eyes when you show an extended-capacity magazine and call it an “assault clip.” Disarm us/distract us with laughter? Good luck with that.
- Spin it all you like – it’s still grabbing guns, and it still won’t fly.
They are wiley and persistent. I’ll grant ’em that. (Then again, I’d say the same thing about Wiley E. Coyote, and he’s not exactly the poster-boy for WINNING, any more than Charlie Sheen is.)
The funny part about all this is that, if you look at the Lautenberg/McCarthy bill currently floating about the rarified air in D.C., it attempts to ban ANY magazine with a capacity of more than 10 rounds, and make it a crime, punishable by jail time, to even possess one. Nice. Of course, unspoken in all the brouhaha is that this would effectively ban a significant number of handguns on the market as well – say, anything with a double-stack magazine. Glocks? Buh-bye. Springfield XDs? History team. Any modern polymer pistol? On the endangered-species list, without hope of a reprieve from the Department of the Interior, Sierra Club, or OSHA.
To hear the HuffPo-folks spin it, you’d think the ad is a stroke of genius from “one of the nation’s most powerful gun-control advocacy groups.” That’s kind of like damning with feint praise, if you ask me. It’s the equivalent of saying “the most effective Progressive President since Jimmy Carter” or “more open and transparent an administration than the Nixon White House.” Um. Yeah. Not so much.
But the Brady Bunch doesn’t stop there. Nope. They’ve enlisted the help of Kelly O’Brien. “Kelly O’Who?” you might ask. She was the fiancé of the late Gabe Zimmerman, the Congressional staffer who was shot and killed by Loughner. She’s going up on (Capitol) Hill to guilt some mugwump Congressmen to get behind the Laughtenberg/McCarthy bill.
If you watch the video closely, you’ll see that they don’t miss a beat – or a trick. (Although, guys…you need to get yourself a new sound effects editor. The gunfire audio sounds like a Ruger 10-22…not exactly the muy macho machine o’ death you’re using for fearmongering.)
The paper target? A silhouette of a young girl in pigtails. Not to be outdone for those who might not feel a bond to Pipi Longstocking, they throw in some other imagry as well, in that quick-cut montage style we’ve all come to know and loathe – an elderly man, an adult woman, a generic male outline, a postman (Wow! Now THAT’S insensitive? Where’s the PC Police when you need ’em), a graduating college student in mortarboard cap and gown (a little subliminal, but whatever floats yer boat) and back to Pipi. This is followed by the legend “Assault Clips: They Make Everyone a Target,” followed by the call to action: “Tell President Obama to Ban Assault Clips.”
The spot ends with the Brady Bunch logo, and their new spin, uh…slogan: “Sensible Gun Laws Save Lives.” I’d almost agree with them on that one, but the law I have in mind reads A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. That’s really about all the gun law we need, far as I’m concerned.