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“Bill Jenkins isn’t your classic gun control lobbyist,” nwitimes.com asserts. “In fact, he isn’t even a lobbyist or a formal activist. He is an Illinois gun owner and a father who lost a child to gun violence.” Once again, the mainstream media is ready, willing and able to wave the bloody shirt on behalf of gun control advocates. In this case, Mr. Jenkins’ is lobbying—sorry, speaking out on behalf of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s firearms registration and taxation plans for Illinois . . .
Jenkins gets pole position in writer Samson Adams’ thinly disguised polemic. As you’d expect. In left-leaning journalists’ twisted world view, professional victims are sexy. Tragic. Noble. Focused. Dedicated. Interesting. And easy.
“My son was shot and killed in 1997,” Jenkins tells Adams, “and … I don’t want bad guys to have guns, it’s simple.”
Adams should’ve ended it there. Unfortunately (for all of us) he doesn’t get paid to write Valentine’s Day cards to tyrannical government schemes that piss on the U.S. constitution. So the reporter dutifully trots out Jenkins’ opposition.
Enter Illinois State Rifle Association executive director, Richard Pearson. Pearson reckons Hizzoner’s plan to register all Illinois gun owners’ firearms and impose a $65 registration fee (plus $25 per anum) is “a tax on a civil liberty.” Oh, and did you know that Pearson is a gun nut?
Besides opposing it because he sees it as a violation of the 2nd Amendment, Pearson said he believes gun possession is a necessity for self-defense and he wouldn’t want to hinder people’s ability to purchase and keep a firearm.
He even has used one himself, when a jewelry store he owned in Normal was close to being robbed.
“A guy came in and shut the door and locked it with a latch. He said, ‘What would you do if I tried to rob you?’ I always carry a .45 with me, and I showed him my .45 and said, ‘I will shoot you,'” Pearson said with pride.
The would-be robber left straightaway, he said.
Note: You and I will read that story as vindication. The average reader will take it as a tale of someone who needs medication. And his gun rights removed. Sure, it’s a true story. But not exactly the best one to illustrate the anti-registration and taxation position. Which is why it’s there.
How do I know for sure that Samson is playing favorites?
Right from the git-go Samson’s framing the “debate” as a conflict between a non-professional gun control moderate (perfectly untrue) and a professional gun nut. If Jenkins “isn’t your classic gun rights advocate,” why not find a “normal” person to make the case against the scheme? You know: someone who hasn’t done the Clint Eastwood snappy rejoinder thing.
Second, Samson gives Jenkins the last word. In any [thinly disguised] advocacy piece, as in life, the guy who gets the last word wins. And quite the chilling word it is too.
For Jenkins, the idea that an authority is keeping tabs on people’s firearms is a good thing, whether it is the state or city doing the monitoring.
“People behave better in our society when they know somebody is watching,” he said.
Which is exactly what TTAG will continue to do regarding the mainstream media’s coverage of our second amendment right to keep and bear arms.
I am inclined to give a grieving father a good deal of latitude, but your point about how the media jackals prey upon men and women who have suffered a loss is correct.
It seems to me that they use these grieving parents as a way to insulate the bad argument from opposition. Decent people are not willing to be harsh to someone who has suffered such a loss.
Eventually we will have to start calling out the likes of Bill Jenkins. I wonder how much this will imperil the space and patience we offer grieving parents. This is just another way the media helps coarsen our culture.
It’s not just the media’s fault.
The victims feel vindicated by the media attention. It “gives meaning” to their loss. They learn what the press needs; how the media wants them to frame their experience. This solidifies their position.
Ultimately, we must all take personal responsibility for how we interpret the events in our lives. And what we do with our experiences.
Well said. You see the same thing up here in the frosty North and the media and politicians wallow in it.
There’s a fine line between ‘grieving parent’ and ‘professional victim.’
I’m not quite sure where the line between the two is, but in this case (as in most cases) it was somewhere between ‘my child is dead’ and ‘there ought to be a law.’
I have sympathy for those who lose their children to tragic events, but that sympathy evaporates quickly when they advocate for the expansion of mala prohibita statutes, under the assumption that such statutes would have prevented the tragedy that befell their family.
Once again, gun control nuts dance in the blood of victims of violence to push their evil agenda.
“…finds a friend.”
I believe the word you were looking for is patsy. Or stooge.
Jenkins may not want bad guys to have guns, but he’s mostly working to make sure the good guys don’t have them. A little intellectual honesty on his part and on the part of the reporter would make that clear. Never mind mentioning the millions of times guns have prevented death and serious injury.
It is odd, as you note, that victimhood has become the instrument of power in this country. Maybe it’s the American love for the underdog, twisted and stretched to the breaking point, but that’s how one group of people now attempts to use the power of state violence to rob other people of their rights.
By the way, congrats too on TTAG’s keeping an eye on the Propaganda Mills. Since they’ve decided to censor themselves of the truth, the only thing left to do is call them on their fakery.
A “defection study” might be interesting. I read so many “I converted an anti-gunner today by taking them to the range” stories on Internet forums, but I rarely see anyone saying, “I’m renouncing guns, and here’s why” or “My range buddy went off the deep end, sold his guns and joined the Brady Campaign.”
I suspect that there are more “conversions” to our side than “defections” to the other side, but what I’ve found is anecdotal, and it may be difficult to impossible to collect hard numbers.
You can find the conversions to the anti’s among some of the people who have had family members who were victims of gun violence. The conversion from anti to pro is usually knowledge based i.e. experiences, looking at the data, the conversion from pro or neutral to anti is usually emotionally based. If logic and facts worked on the anti’s there would not be a problem.
NukemJim
Mr. Jenkins lost his son, a tragic event and now wears it as a badge of honor to promote his agenda.
His wife tries to wrap herself in the same victim hood because a teenager, stole a gun from a family member and murdered. She was 3 months pregnant, and never fails to bring it up.
Both met at a support group for victims. And have never met a gun control measure they didn’t like. Oh sure they will try to come off as reasonable and only wanting small things, but look at the other bills they have supported like the Illinis version of a McCarthy semi-auto ban and the orginal Daley semi-auto ban which called for confiscation of all banned guns.
His ownership of a .357 I believe is his passport to tryign to say he’s one of the gun owners who doesn’t agree with the NRA or other gun groups. He’s no different that Josh over at CSGV and his gun ownership or the BOD of the now defunct AHSA.
Bill Jenkins isn’t a formal gun grabber?
Ya right………
http://gunvictimsaction.org/boards-of-directors/bill-jenkins-northfield-illinois/
“People behave better in our society when they know somebody is watching,” he said.
Spoken like a true subject, lovingly accepting the whip. Or a wannabe tyrant. Neither is the mark of a decent human, much less a decent American. It’s sad that when people lose someone close to them, some of them react by becoming victims too mentally weak to face reality.
That precious little gem is also entirely untrue; people behave better when they know other people are armed.
Anybody who thinks the government keeping Big Brother-like tabs on a Constitutional right doesn’t deserve the freedoms he was born with, and is indeed a domestic enemy of this country. He’s a useful idiot of tyrants, nothing more.
Is she saying that a trigger lock would have stopped someone who broke into a house and stole a firearm from using it in a gun crime at a much later time? How, if a DOOR lock didn’t stop the guy would a little trigger lock?
Never let a good tragedy go to waste.
Yeah, watching you all the way down the hall to room 101.
I simply cannot comprehend some people.
oops, forgot my quote:
“People behave better in our society when they know somebody is watching,” he said.
“Once again, the mainstream media is ready, willing and able to wave the bloody shirt on behalf of gun control advocates.”
Aren’t gun rights advocates somewhat guilty of this as well? If only those poor disarmed ________ hadn’t been in a gun free zone they might still be alive.
Just an observation.
This lady is all about her precious government protecting her. And she is convinced laws will do that. A trigger lock is all that it took, really? It’s a bit more involved than that. And the grieving father did not elaborate on the gun violence that took his son. Was it a ND or was his son in the wrong place at the wrong time. Was a criminal responsible for his son’s death, and why aren’t we blaming the guy who pulled the trigger? How about coming together on that before we start with more regulations and restrictions that only impact law abiding people.
Look, let’s call a spade a spade. What gun owners are really saying is, they’ve lost their faith that law enforcement is going to protect them, and they would rather shoot and be shot at. But,like the Florida case,they will increasingly be held accountable for their actions. And when enough of these self defense cases end in convictions, then maybe the idea that law offiers are the only ones who need handguns is going to start to make sense. After all, it would be a whole lot easier to tell the goodguys from the bad guys if they were the only ones carrying. Look, the reason these shootings occur in the first place is that a handgun is much easier to HIDE than a shotgun. If you really feel the need to shoot a hangun, rent one at the range. Even bring your own loads to shoot. Let’s cut the crap about the second amendment. Pay your taxes. Push your state and local governments to put more police on the streets. Show them (the police) that you have faith in them. And show the bad guys that your town is YOUR TOWN, and they won’t get away. Then, make them pay by puting them away for a LONG TIME. God bless America