Gun control advocates? Gun violence preventers? (courtesy msnbc.com)
Previous Post
Next Post

Never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake. So please, gun control advocates, feel free to rename yourselves. Yet again. Although I have to say I’ll miss “gun safety advocate.” Because armed Americans can’t hear the words “gun safety” enough.

As for the term’s failed replacement — “gun reform advocate” — I liked that one, too, because it was totally stupid. Believe it or not, the latest moniker is even stupiderer.

GVP advocate. The acronym stands for Gun Violence Prevention.

Mike "The Gun Guy" Weisser (courtesy youtube.com)

Our old friend Mike “the Gun Kapo” Weisser “invented” the term ostensibly to compete with his three-letter bogeyman (the NRA). The first GVP use that caught my attention: Gun Violence Prevention Advocates Need to Unite and Organize for November.

Does it bother me that the increasingly shrill appeals for money by the NRA contain statements that simply aren’t true? Not really. After all, when you’re selling something that people don’t need, you do what you gotta do. What does bother me is the degree to which NRA emails and messaging aren’t matched by the other side.

And you would think that since the Gun Violence Prevention movement (or what we call ‘GVP’) finally has someone running for president who is talking loudly and continuously about the need to end gun violence, this would be enough of a reason to ramp things up and start responding to the NRA in kind. But I received no less than four emails today from national and state-level GVP groups and none of them mentioned the election at all.

I dismissed Mr. Weisser’s “what we call ‘GVP'” statement as arrogant wishful thinking (hardly a first). And GVP disappeared without a trace. Until today, when The Trace trotted-out GVP — without explanation — for a news item.

2. GVP advocates get disinvited from a suicide prevention walk

Organizers of a San Diego suicide prevention charity walk asked a delegation from Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America [San Diego chapter below] to not distribute literature at the event this past Saturday, citing differences over gun policy.

Moms Demand Action of San Diego (courtesy voiceofsandiego.com)

“Their organization’s legislative stance related to guns is inconsistent with our efforts,” Jessica van der Stad, the regional director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, told the Voice of San Diego. “As a suicide prevention organization, we are not in the business of saying who can and cannot own firearms. We are in the business of saving lives.”

In a weird way, I hope “GVP” catches on.

While the military and government love them some acronyms, here in the real world, branding gurus consider letter-only names anathema. Sure, the NRA, CBS and even IBM are a thing. But it takes for-ever to establish widespread recognition of a letter-only name, and there’s no guarantee of success.

Going three-letter requires singular focus. The Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex is split between the Moms, Bradys, Everytowns, the VPC (who no one’s heard of) and ARS (who . . . wait for it . . .  just changed their name).

Any mainstream media attempt to lump these gun control groups under the GVP banner will dilute the individual gun ban brands.

Grand Valley Power (courtesy gvp.org)

Not to mention the fact that Mike and his minions aren’t the first to lay claim to “GVP.”  The EU (European Union) spends millions of Euros promoting GVP (“Good Pharmacovigilance“). The American Stock Exchange lists power company software behemoth GSE Systems as GVP.  Grand Valley Power (above) owns the url gvp.org. Oh, and wikipedia.org offers the following citations for GVP.

  • Global Volcanism Program, a program of the Smithsonian Institution to document Earth’s volcanoes and their eruptive history over the past 10,000 years
  • Great Valley Products, a former third-party Amiga hardware supplier
  • All-German People’s Party (German: Gesamtdeutsche Volkspartei), a political party in the Federal Republic of Germany 1952–1957
  • Gurukula Vidya Peeth, an Indian high school in Ibrahim Patan, Rangareddy, Andhra Pradesh, India
  • G. V. Prakash Kumar (born 1987), Indian film score and soundtrack composer mainly for Tamil films, singer, film producer and actor

What, no Gun Violence Prevention? Oh well.

I reckon “GVP” will fail, just like all of its euphemistic predecessors. As it should. GVP advocates want to ignore or repeal the Second Amendment and ban civilian firearms ownership. They are gun control advocates, plain and simple.

That’s my take. What do you, a member of TTAG’s AI, think?

Previous Post
Next Post

45 COMMENTS

  1. “What do you, a member of TTAG’s AI, think?”

    I think, that if TTAG put together it’s own NFP and membership drive, we could crush the anti’s movement in a week of weekends. Whatever wasn’t crushed, we could mop up by viral effect; making DHS descend on certain areas by causing problems there (a/k/a: Soros-ing / ANTIFA-ing / Black-bloc -ing / BLM -ing., etc.).

    Or, we could just keep typing about it here.

  2. The problem with dismissing the gun control crowd and the major media is the quote from Dr. Joseph Goebbels :

    “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. ”

    The left is a firm believer in the saying and is working hard on many fronts to prove it. Gun control is just one. White privilege, hands up don’t shoot, black suppression, ……. etc.

    Add some more phrases they use.

    • A major difference is that the US is not yet the marxist/fascist/socialist nirvana the progs want to change it to. We’re still individuals in the US able to think for ourselves. Or some are able to do so.

  3. I think I recall another obscure group that tried to limit and infringe on the people’s civil rights – constantly spreading lies and “scientific data” to justify the vilification of their targeted demographic… Called themselves cook clucks clan or something…

      • Yeah, kinda part of that whole slavrry thing, but it seems that the political party behind those things has forgotten their culpability.

        • The meaningful unit of measure is geography not party, you see it was Southerners who treated black folks like animals/plows not Democrats. You see it is Southerners from colonial times to the war who have a meaningful connection to slavery in the slavocratic society they created, not Democrats who dont even exist until a few decades before the war.

          White supremacist chattel slavery originates in the early 17th century, accelerates after the Yamasee War when they run out of indigeneous folks to enslave and throughout the 18th century, gets another burst during the cotton boom in the 1820s, and the Democratic party isnt even founded until 1828!

          But hey I get it, you have no idea what Im talking about, youre ignorant of American history, you too stupid to understand how to evaluate geography versus party, and in general you cant think in any meaningful way but can only regurgitate what you hear on am radio, and this is an infamous Rush mantra, that the Democratic party is the party of slavery…

        • If you could think youd realize that you unwittingly discredit yourself when you have to go back over 150 years to find an example of the RepubliC party acting in the interest of black folks : D

          Seriously you should really try hard to think about this… this Beckian “history” is beyond ridiculous, it makes you look stupid in the most risible way, meaning you learn two facts ie slavery exists in the 1820s and the DemocratIC party is founded in the 1820s but then you draw not just wholly unwarranted conclusions from those facts but downright perverse nonsensical conclusions from those facts…

          See if you can understand this example… another racist dunce on here bragged to me that the first black Senator was elected from the South in 1870, Hiram Revels from Mississippi, but then he claimed this was evidence that the South wasnt really that racist… In fact though the only reason he was elected was because the North militarily occupied the South until 1877 in an effort to hinder Southerners from continuing to dehumaize black folks and of course exclude them from political life… so you see again the two facts are correct but the interpretation is absurd…

          I hope you can transcend your ignorant upbringing and surrounding and not live and die the doofus racist clown you have been…

        • Professor Motormough says: “White supremacist chattel slavery originates in the early 17th century, accelerates after the Yamasee War when they run out of indigeneous folks to enslave and throughout the 18th century, gets another burst during the cotton boom in the 1820s, and the Democratic party isnt even founded until 1828!”

          I notice how you define things to suit your premise.
          Slavery certainly didn’t start with whites. Nor is it practiced by whites today.
          Yet slavery still exists today.
          Obviously, slavery is/was never an institution peculiar to whites.
          How does that fit into your world?

    • The group was not obscure that treated folks like animals/plows and concocted ailments like draepetomania (main symptom was the urge to escape from slavery) and other scientific racism not to mention a popular culture riddled with the most heinous racist stereotypes, and it was not the KKK, it was mainstream and they called themselves SOUTHERNERS… and still do flying their slavery/Southern-style Apartheid flag!

  4. Mike doesn’t have the brains God gave a jelly fish! That sewer dweller really needs to be put away permanently for being such a total waste of sperm! Now would be a great time to start SWATING all members of those groups without end!

  5. “Gun Control Advocates Rebrand. Again. Still.”

    Like a corporation declaring bankruptcy, restructuring, and renaming, just to go on and make the same mistakes and blunders that got them in trouble in the first place…

    The definition of insanity…
    “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

    • BLM won the Sydney Peace Prize for all their constructive work on the issue of police disproportionately shooting unarmed black folks… how will you celebrate this wonderful group being acknowledged for their good work (in the face of countless racists smearing them : ( ) ?

      • And Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize.
        Everyone in the Special Olympics gets a prize.
        There’s a prize for everyone, somewhere.

  6. All this renaming makes me think of some kind of Witness Protection Program for organizations that reveal their true motives — or ineptitude. Isn’t the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence itself a reskin of Handgun Control Inc.?

    Which of these groups hasn’t “rebranded”? Even MDA — an obvious tailcoat-rider modeling itself after MADD, has been semi-rolled into the goofily-monikered Everytown for Gun Safety.

    If they’d just name themselves “People Channeling Their Phobias and Political Leanings Into Rabid Hatred For Law Abiding Folks Who Happen to Own Firearms,” I’d respect them a whole lot more.

    • I was thinking CDC for Civilian Disarmament Complex, but I may well like yours better.

      To TTAG:
      This comment system is not suited for a site that draws as much traffic as this one does.

  7. Article IV

    Section 2.

    The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.
    (all citizens have equal rights and privileges)

    Article VI

    This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
    ( Constitution trumps all other laws )

    Amendment II

    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.
    (Law of the land)

    Still missing the part that Constitutionally allows gun control/regulation
    All I see is Subversion and Sedition with conspiracy to commit both.

  8. OK, TTAG, you gave the place a facelift.

    The comment part, however, is worse than before. I used to be able to double-click on the fiend, and get the right fill. That doesn’t work any more.
    I still don’t get updates by email.
    Was the facelift really more important?
    As I said before, other blogs have comment sections that work as planned. It can’t be that hard.

  9. The awkward acronym “GVP” does not roll trippingly off the tongue in the same way that “AT&T” and “IBM” do.

    Just looking at the letters, it reminds me of “NGVC” (the ticker symbol of “Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage”) and of “GPF” (General Protection Fault).

    What else might that same acronym stand for?
    GVP — Guards of the Vatican Palace
    GVP – Garonne Valley Project
    GVP – Grant Verification Procedures
    GVP – Gruesome Vehicular Ploughing (too soon?)
    GVP – Guaranteed Valid Proposals
    GVP – Grudgingly Vetted Politicians

    I’m sure there are other possibilities. Who else would like to suggest some?

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here