States United to Prevent Gun Violence/Ceasefire USA is an extremist gun control group. I say extremist because the tactics they use constitute emotional torture. They were the group that pulled the “Guns with History” stunt, in which they opened a fake gun store in NYC in which each of the guns “for sale” had been used in a murder or accidental shooting.
Not to be outdone by that grotesqueitude, they engaged in another act of psychological terrorism. They created a fake movie theater and ambushed people, not with a crappy PSA, but with actual security cam footage of real people being murdered. Yes, they are attempting to generate support for gun control by showing people a snuff film.
You have been warned:
This is beyond the pale.
First of all, to do this to unsuspecting people is egregious. They were trying to make the point that guns in real life are not romantic like they are in the movies.
This is morally tantamount to not liking BDSM so inviting people to see a fake theater to watch 50 Shades of Gray, then showing them security camera footage of a violent rape.
Watching a fictional story is entertaining. The overwhelming majority of people can love the movie Taken or Man on Fire and still know that murder is wrong and not go out the next day and kill people. It has been proven over and over again that mentally healthy people do not become violent because of violent media.
But this kind of shock tactic is what extremists do.
Reality is much more complex. Not all gun use is bad. Gun play can be fun. There are some pretty bad-ass videos on line of people enjoying shooting and not killing people. Even with respect to using a gun to kill, sometimes a person needs to defend themselves.
So I will respond in kind with this video from New Jersey. A woman was beaten in a home invasion. The attack was captured by nanny cam. She begged the invader not to hurt her child. She was at the mercy of her attacker, and it is a miracle she survived.
Could she have prevented that attack with a gun. I don’t know. There are no guarantees in life. But compare the beating the woman in New Jersey suffered to the experience of this Oklahoma woman who shot an killed a home invader before he could land a finger on her.
Context matters.
Also, Ceasefire USA are assholes.
Fake. If they really were disgusted and disturbed with the footage, they would have left. And the statements before and after the “movie”? “oooh, i wanna see bloooood” and then “yes, guns are bad, ban them all.”
and if by any chance it’s not staged, well… it’s clear they don’t own guns and all they know about them is from movies.
but i think it’s fake.
+1 it turned out the “customers” in the fake gun shop filled with fake guns were in fact hired actors.
I have little doubt this was how the “patrons” were acquired as well.
First up who sees a movie poster and decides to drop $10 (it’s probably close to $20 in NYC, I’m sure) for a ticket knowing NOTHING else.
I guess it IS possible a barker lured people in with FREE FREE FREE tickets, and MAYBE that barker or the person dispensing the tickets gave some sort of blurb for the patrons to do the before clip.
It’s all possible, it’s likely NYC so the audience is primed for gun control anyway….but given that these goons have a good relationship with a casting agency, that one seems to fall on the correct side of Occam’s Razor.
I find it very interesting that in their attempt to make their point (that guns are bad! Shame on you, gun owners!) that they pretty much sum up our view point when the third person they are “interviewing” makes this statement: “You’re waiting for someone to save the day and you’re waiting for some– everybody to, you know– stand up and we’re all okay.”
So, basically, you were waiting for the good guy with the gun to come in and stop the bad guy with the gun? Right, wasn’t that exactly where you were going with that statement?
Only nobody did stop that bad guy with a gun, because they either didn’t have one, which means that they were at the mercy of a bad guy with a gun with no way to stop him, or they were outmaneuvered or out-numbered or out-gunned by the bad guys, and weren’t able to bring their gun to bear on the bad guy/guys in order to stop him/them.
But guns are bad. Shame on you gun owners!
This isn’t really about trying to win converts to their side. This is smirking, Ironic, hipster virtue signaling, a cheap stunt meant to gain praise (plus fame and fortune) from those on their own side.
States United is an umbrella organization funded exclusively by the Joyce Foundation. It organizes and funds all those ‘grassroots’ state level (or smaller) groups that can’t survive on their own because they consist of one or two people.