Gun control vs. "gun control"
By Mustang Bobby
Steve M makes the case that while a majority of Americans support specific proposals to prevent gun violence, they don’t like the laws that have been written to enact them. Hence the recall of two state senators in Colorado who backed laws requiring universal background checks and limiting magazine sizes, but the majority of voters in the state support the elements.
Why? It’s because the NRA has been very good at framing the issue as an “us vs. them” — the “us” being Real Muricans and the “them” being the commie pinko hippie fruits from Noo Yawk.
Not only that, the NRA knows it’s an absurdly easy way to both raise money — there will be a Navy Yard-based fundraising letter going out to the NRA membership before the yellow crime-scene tape comes down — and intimidate members of Congress. They will wave the bloody shirt of the Navy Yard and the Colorado recalls, and before the day is out you will be hearing members of Congress tell us it’s “too soon” to be talking about gun control again.
Steve M makes the case that while a majority of Americans support specific proposals to prevent gun violence, they don’t like the laws that have been written to enact them. Hence the recall of two state senators in Colorado who backed laws requiring universal background checks and limiting magazine sizes, but the majority of voters in the state support the elements.
Why? It’s because the NRA has been very good at framing the issue as an “us vs. them” — the “us” being Real Muricans and the “them” being the commie pinko hippie fruits from Noo Yawk.
It’s all part of the culture war we’ve been living through for at least half a century. Oh, sure, Americans support universal background checks, and want the likes of Aaron Alexis — previously arrested for more than one gun offense — not to be able to obtain guns effortlessly … but “gun control” is something that comes from liberals and hippies and untrustworthy rootless-cosmopolitan city slickers like Mike Bloomberg. Whereas the NRA (despite being a Beltway lobbying operation) is identified with heartland America, so it’s trustworthy and admired.
Heartlanders don’t reject gun control because of how they feel about gun control proposals. They reject gun control because of who supports it. If we’re for it, it’s absurdly easy for the NRA to tell heartlanders they should be against it.
And that’s why twelve people had to die at the Washington Navy Yard today.
Not only that, the NRA knows it’s an absurdly easy way to both raise money — there will be a Navy Yard-based fundraising letter going out to the NRA membership before the yellow crime-scene tape comes down — and intimidate members of Congress. They will wave the bloody shirt of the Navy Yard and the Colorado recalls, and before the day is out you will be hearing members of Congress tell us it’s “too soon” to be talking about gun control again.
(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)
Labels: gun violence
posted by Richard K. Barry at
11:30 AM
2 Comments:
There has been a lot of research regarding the "framing effect" and how people will make opposite responses to the identical circumstances depending on how it's presented. People seem to feel more strongly negative when something is framed as a loss than they feel reciprocally positive about a potential gain.
The NRA is brilliant at framing every miniscule regulation as the inevitable precursor to a complete revocation of a dearly held right than others are at presenting it in a positive light. No possible positive benefit will balance the fear of loss.
Perhaps the game is rigged by human psychology itself.
By
Capt. Fogg, at 5:51 PM
Al Franken once pointed out that over 200,000 people are wounded by gunfire in the U.S. every year. The cost of treating those people is around $20 billion. And 80 percent of that is paid for by the taxpayer.
Speaking of the issue of "freedom," where is my freedom, as a taxpayer, from having to foot the bill for this outrageous carnage?
By
Marc McDonald, at 12:28 AM
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