Except on those documented and published cases where people saved their lives or the lives of others using a firearm?
This is Pre-Internet propaganda tactics. They are from an era in which the Gun Control groups had absolute control of what the media would put out in terms of information. Clue: Dear Gun Control Activists, you are no longer in control of the signal.
Anybody with a computer. tablet of smart phone is now a fact checker. Ten seconds on your favorite search engine and you will destroy statements like the one above. So why do it? Why write such stupid headlines that can be proven wrong by the simple application of common sense? I have two answers, not necessarily explain the whole thing, but I figure close enough.
-They do not know how else to proceed. – We go again with the absolutism. Since its foundation, the Gun Control movement has been radical in its stance: No guns for the Proletariat. They will come out and say “Well, we really do not want to ban all guns, but nobody really needs…” and “We don’t want to ban guns, but we think we need more laws about….” while moving the goalpost constantly. Of course, if a major event happens, the masks fall and they go rabid demanding house by house search and confiscation. And when the waters return to normal, they will go “Don’t be silly, we really didn’t mean that” bat their eyes and try to steer the conversation away from the subject.
So basically, they cannot radicalize any deeper short of start sending gun owners east packed in boxcars (not for lack of wanting in some cases as I covered here) The view on Gun Ownership and the Second Amendment has turned increasingly favorable and that would mean for Gun Control to be forced to accept it which it would begin a slide down a path they know it would lead to their eventual disappearance. They rather much you die than they accept such way: Remember, for them compromise means we give up now and then again later until they are satisfied.
-They need to keep their core base of followers excited and active. And they can’t do that by telling the truth. Fanatics feed on Absolutism and the Gun Control Groups need to produce their Soylent Green constantly. Faux studies are one of the appetizers thrown to their followers and they eat them like a Mako gorging on chum thrown by a Discovery Channel boat filming for Shark week. Most groups depend on donations from their fanatical base who will not accept any deviation of the established dogma. When they are forced to accept some compromise, they will blame God, Country, the NRA, Gun Owners, Military-Industrial complex and the local Boy Scout Troop. At this time, a sorrowful email will be sent from Gun Control HQ telling the base “Hey, we need money to fight the good fight. We are facing very rich gun manufacturers! SEND ME MONEY!” And they comply happily so Josh and Shannon and the rest can get their Soy-non-cream-half-caf-sugar-free-caramel frappucino.
If this is the best that Everytown can come up with, we are not in such a bad shape. Surely they will be referenced by the Traditional Big Media as gospel, but it is not the first time and it will not be the first one either to eventually dissolve itself into irrelevance…which they already have a good head start with crap like this.
Hemenway? YHGTBSM. He was debunked 20 years ago. If I couldn’t do any better than that, I’d throw in the towel. It’s this kind of thing that shows we are winning. They can’t kill the truth, even with a study that everyone knows is based on lies and false logic.
“If this is the best that Everytown can come up with, we are not in such a bad shape.”
Glad you can be so chipper about it.
I’m actually quite gloomy about our prospects, given the Supreme Court’s recent decision. If the Supremes can turn something like that around on a Thursday afternoon, they could overturn Heller and McDonald in a heartbeat.
And what’s more, the Regime in Federal Power would love to go door-to-door and confiscate all guns, except they know they don’t have enough power, and the people aren’t demoralized sufficiently yet to avoid causing a civil war. That’s the thing about collectivists, though… they are willing to wait GENERATIONS to see their goals come about.
Remember that they believe they have the support of the “majority of the people”.
Pew and Gallup polls, on the other hand, show a majority DON’T favor increased “gun control”.
(OK, so to be fair, neither side has a majority; the “undecided” class straddles the 50% mark. But those who support “gun control” are a clear minority.)
Not that our rights are subject to the whims of the “majority”, but they’d need a majority to have the grassroots support to make any substantive changes, and they don’t have it.
Remember, in Washington State they only got 59% to vote for the “universal background check” that, supposedly, 92% of Americans support. And that was after out-spending the pro-gun side 12-to-1.
What that tells me, is that the antis are dead wrong about what 33% (or 1 in 3) of Americans think.
If, in order to make your side of the debate, you have to lie… your side was probably wrong.
Not so much that anti-gunners are out of ideas as they didn’t really have any ideas in the first place. Just bad propaganda.
The study headline is clearly wrong from a reality viewpoint. Unless if the firearm is taken from you (which is very rare), a defensive firearm is automatically an advantage compared to their reference point of disarmed.
It might escalate the situation (it usually has the opposite effect) and violence ensues, however, at least now you are armed and at parity with the attacker.
It takes a real disconnect from logic for them to think that being unarmed is the best state in a criminal situation where violence is threatened.