You gotta love gun control advocates. Even though not many do. Yesterday’s Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America rally in Indianapolis was another in the long, perhaps endless lines of damp squibs. Despite the group’s deep-pocketed benefactor’s political juice and financial largesse, MDA couldn’t assemble the promised anti-gun throng. Only about 50 Moms gathered a few blocks from the NRA convention to protest, well, the usual. I think “evil gun lobby” was the theme. Whatever. MDA jefe Shannon Watts’ bodyguards were the headline attraction . . .
As you can see from the snapshot at the top of the post, Ms. Watts was protected by two men straight out of central casting. I’m sure plenty of TTAG readers can (and will) tell us what’s wrong with this picture, close protection-wise (e.g., close protection means close protection). If nothing else, note that Bald-Headed Goon #1 (BHG1) is morbidly obese. When the you-know-what gets real, a fat bodyguard is about as useful as a thin sumo wrestler.
Not that Shannon knows that, or cares. The head of America’s most dangerous gun control group didn’t hire the two men to save her in the event of a genuine attack, but to prevent it. Through intimidation. Hence the bodyguards’ size, “look at me” suits, “I have no emotions” sunglasses and silence. Hence their Foo Dog positioning during the rally.
Watts was comfortable deploying burly BHGs for the same reason celebs are: they made her feel safe. Which makes perfect sense. Watts’ “common sense” crusade is not about actual safety – protecting average Americans from violent crime in America. At the sharp end, that would be best be achieved by helping Americans use their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. No. MDA is about making people feel safe.
But not just any people. White people. Lest we forget, Watts founded One Million Moms for Gun Control (the group’s original, more honest if wildly inaccurate moniker) after the Newtown massacre. After a white spree killer murdered 20 white children and six white school employees in a lily-white Connecticut commuter suburb. The fact that the minority-member gang bangers have been mowing down each other – and innocent bystanders – for decades wasn’t enough to motivate the former Monsanto mouthpiece.
Yes, I went there. Why not? Aside from [some] people who’ve been shot or lost loved ones to firearms-related violence, people whose minds refuse to consider the possibility that a good guy with a gun could have spared them their agony, MDA’s core constituency – perhaps its only constituency – is people who are safe. White suburbanites who believe they don’t need guns because . . . they don’t. So you don’t either.
Shannon’s obvious strategy: use spree killer fear and random attack anxiety to convince these privileged, protected Americans that their safety would be safer if everyone did what they did: leave the gun stuff to to the police.
If you want to know why Shannon and her followers are happy that she’s hanging out with MIB BHGs, where you and I see them as blatantly hypocritical and a laughable example of security theater, there’s your answer. The bodyguards embody MDA’s underlying philosophy of passivity and subservience to nameless, faceless protectors. Goons are good – as long as they’re our goons. The idea that these goons would turn on their defenseless, pacifist employers doesn’t even ping their radar.
By the way, I reckon the BHGs are less capable of protecting Ms. Watts than your average law-abiding concealed carry American. If Ms. Watts wants real security, I’m sure The People of the Gun could make that happen. Ironically enough.