On a recent post, a commenter noted that anti-RKBA groups must have trouble recruiting workers given the conflicting skill sets of credentials and experience and the reasoning skills of a toddler. I had to disagree; since the goal of groups like Moms Demand Deaths Action isn’t reducing violence, poor logical skills aren’t needed.
Just a willingness to lie. Like Shannon “I’m just a stay at home mom” Watts, the professional public relations manager paid by Bloomberg.
Sometimes I’m willing to allow that a person is ignorant, rather than maliciously lying, when advocating for victim disarmament. That’s because there are — at least — two types of gun control advocates.
The first are those for whom the goal is a disarmed citizenry — for the sake of people control — rather than a reduction in violence.
The second is their targeted demographic: those who didn’t care enough about the subject to have already educated themselves using readily available data. The first group lies to the second to instill panic so that they will begin to care. But the targeted demographic will be operating on the dramatic lies and blood-dancing they accepted passively.
How do you tell the ignorantly well-intentioned — who might be capable of grasping reality once it’s presented — from the outright liars? Let’s look at a hypothetical situation.
Some horrible murder occurs. A group forms saying they want to prevent that happening again. They create a Facebook page to present facts about guns and violence, including a graphic that purports to show that having a gun is more likely to be a danger to you and yours, than to useful for protection. Someone else notes that they’ve referenced the debunked Kellerman study.
At this point, the gun control group could do a few things. They could ask what the Kellerman study is, suggesting they work from simple ignorance. They could stand up for the Kellerman study, which might be ignorance or lying; could go either way.
Or, they might claim that graphic doesn’t represent the Kellerman study, indicating they know what the Kellerman paper is, and that it isn’t worth using as a reference.
So let’s say they did the latter. And our observant commenter points out that the graphic specifically includes text saying it’s from the Kellerman paper. A few other people jump in to tell them the same thing. And the next time our fearless commenter visits the page, his comments have been deleted, as have the others supporting his position. The Kellerman graphic remains now unchallenged. That would be a group of liars, not well-intentioned ignoramuses.
Oh. Wait. That situation wasn’t hypothetical. That’s exactly what Watts’ Moms Demand Action did.
Maybe another hypothetical.
Let’s say that a state legislature is considering a bill to impose universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence prior restraint background checks for firearms purchases. And let’s say that another group formed in response to the above mentioned mass shooting testify in a public hearing that universal background checks would have stopped the asshole who killed the children at Sandy Hook. Since the murderer obtained his weapons by first murdering his mother and stealing her guns, it’s hard to imagine him then stopping for a background check. But hey.
So someone contacts the group to point out the little problem with the claim. The possible responses could tell us how we should view them.
They could say that their reps were overwhelmed by emotion and misspoke, and offer a correction.
Or they could lie, and claim their reps actually said PPYI would not have stopped the Sandy Hook killer.
Oh. Darn it. This one wasn’t hypothetical either. It happened. I was there in the hearing in New Hampshire in 2014 when the Sandy Hook Promise representatives definitely said PPYI would have stopped him. I laughed out loud. So did several hundred other people, who also muttered enough about the outlandish claim that the committee chairwoman had to call for silence. And when I contacted SHP, they did lie about what their reps testified to.
In fact, I got two lies for the price of one.
“Sandy Hook Promise is firmly rooted in constitutional values and as such does not support policy or legislation that poses a burden on anyone’s rights.”
Except when they send representatives to another state to demand just such burdensome legislation. (Frankly, I’m amazed they got there. They said that Connecticut borders on New Hampshire.)
Once you’ve determined which type you’re dealing with — lying SOBs, or their knowledged challenged targets — deal with them appropriately. Call out the liars like Moms Demand Action, Sandy Hook Promise, and Giffords; especially in a manner that theirs targets can see so they’ll know they’ve been lied to. Admittedly, that’s touigh when the media are the allies of the liars (and generally liars themselves).
The knowledge-challenged you can try to educate directly. But you have to work past the false “knowledge” they’ve been suckered with.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
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