“What gun control measures do you support?” the Arise TV interviewer demanded. “None,” I said. And there you have it. I don’t support any background checks for firearms purchases. I didn’t before Newtown. I don’t now. Most Americans do. Most Americans believe that a gun dealer should check an FBI database to see if the government should “allow” someone to buy a gun. That’s “common sense.” Just as most Americans once believed that the white man was superior to the black man . . .
That too was considered “common sense.” What changed that deeply held racist belief, to the point where white men were prepared to fight and die to eliminate the evils of slavery?
The same thing the gun control advocates are now using to convince Americans that violating the privacy of their medical records and banning an entire class of weapons and the ammunition magazines that make them effective is in their best interest.
Emotion.
It’s doubtful that the North would have entered into a war of emancipation without the phenomenal success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s tale of Eliza’s escape from slavery was the best-selling novel of the 19th century, at a time when books were mass media. It made slavery “real.” It moved men’s hearts.
Just as the Sandy Hook spree killing moved a nation—and opened the door to civilian disarmament.
It’s time to face facts: the “debate” over gun control is not about facts. It’s about emotion. It’s about twenty murdered children lying on the blood-stained floor of an elementary school. Without their grisly, horrific, unconscionable death the gun control industry wouldn’t have squat. Nothing. Nada. And they know it.
Which is why they will be waving the bloody shirt with gusto over the next week. The White House’s decision to “turn over” the President’s weekly address to the parents of a child cut down at Newtown is only the latest gambit in an ongoing, increasingly hysterical campaign to overwhelm reason with emotion.
You’re going to see images of the Sandy Hook slaughter. You’re going to hear new details of the killing, in sickening detail. You’re going to see Colin Goddard, Gabrielle Giffords and other spree killing survivors telling their stories and calling for gun control with Jim Jonesian fervor.
And it just might work. Not only because Americans are “low information” voters who don’t have the time, inclination or analytical skills needed to separate fact from fiction, liberty from lies, Constitution preservation from statist propaganda. But also because Americans are deeply caring, loving people.
They feel for the parents at Sandy Hook. They want to do something in the name of the slaughtered children. No, strike that. Many maybe even most (but not all) Americans feel that not doing something would be wrong. And so they’re empowering the President and his gun control henchmen to “do the right thing.” Whatever that is.
What can gun owners do to counter the wave of emotion harnessed by civilian disarmament proponents, a wave that could sweep away their Constitutionally protected (in theory) right to keep and bear arms? What emotional rescue is available for besieged gun rights advocates?
None.
Sorry, but I can’t think of anything gun rights advocates could say or do to put the Sandy Hook spree killing into its proper perspective. I’ve called for the NRA to launch an immediate ad blitz featuring defensive gun uses. I’ve lobbied the GOA to create a similar sort of “I survived”-style media package. By now, it would be too little too late.
That said, there is one thing that can move a nation in the opposite direction: a government massacre. If the feds or a state’s police create another Ruby Ridge or Waco, where innocent Americans are slaughtered by their own government, if the Internet is “allowed” to report it, if the public sees exactly what an American police state looks like, the tide will turn.
Maybe.
Make no mistake: I don’t want it to happen. I pray to God it doesn’t. But I know it will. Not now. But eventually. If the government turns millions of American gun owners into criminals, how else can this play out?
I just hope gun owners can head this push for disarmament off at the pass. And if not that, if worst comes to worst, I hope that it’s not too late for a peaceful return to the values that Americans hold dear. Whether they know it or not.