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Using Gun Rights Haters Own Research Against Them

darrenlobo

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Using Gun Rights Haters Own Research Against Them

Easy to do with Robert Muggah, among many things the coauthor of “We Need Better Data for a Serious Gun Control Debate”, an article in which he advocates gun control despite the fact that he claims there isn't enough good data on the subject to even have a debate about it. A tad bias, wouldn't you agree? Could that be why gun rights advocates don't want such people doing research on crime and violence? But I digress, on October 8, 2014 he gave a talk at TEDGlobal 2014: South! in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil titled “How To Protect Fast-Growing Cities From Failing”

Read the rest at http://theinternationallibertarian.blogspot.com/2015/01/using-gun-rights-haters-own-research.html
 

utbagpiper

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Facts are necessary, but insufficient.

A large number of people are ruled by emotion. A larger number than would like to admit, are greatly influenced by emotion.

We would do well to recruit to our numbers those who can speak to the need for effective self defense from a position that engenders proper emotions. I hate affirmative action. But we are dire need of it in the RKBA community.

We need more pretty, petite women to speak about their personal need for an effective defense against 250 pound crazed meth heads. So much the better if one of the gals can tell her own sad story of rape and how she will never again be victimized.

We need a few homosexuals, transvestites, and other sexual minorities to speak of their personal need for effective self defense bigots.

We need some racial minorities to speak of their personal need to protect themselves from bigots, and to protect their homes and families from the gangs that urban police departments let run loose in poor, inner-city neighborhoods.

We need a few elderly and disabled persons to speak of their personal need to defend themselves, of their inability to run away from criminals, of how having a gun is part of enabling them to live independently despite their advancing years and declining physical abilities.

Back all of this up with facts, to be sure. But we've got to do more to play the emotion card. It works. That is one reason the other side uses it so much.

Charles
 

Grapeshot

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Facts are necessary, but insufficient.

A large number of people are ruled by emotion. A larger number than would like to admit, are greatly influenced by emotion.

We would do well to recruit to our numbers those who can speak to the need for effective self defense from a position that engenders proper emotions. I hate affirmative action. But we are dire need of it in the RKBA community.

We need more pretty, petite women to speak about their personal need for an effective defense against 250 pound crazed meth heads. So much the better if one of the gals can tell her own sad story of rape and how she will never again be victimized.

We need a few homosexuals, transvestites, and other sexual minorities to speak of their personal need for effective self defense bigots.

We need some racial minorities to speak of their personal need to protect themselves from bigots, and to protect their homes and families from the gangs that urban police departments let run loose in poor, inner-city neighborhoods.

We need a few elderly and disabled persons to speak of their personal need to defend themselves, of their inability to run away from criminals, of how having a gun is part of enabling them to live independently despite their advancing years and declining physical abilities.

Back all of this up with facts, to be sure. But we've got to do more to play the emotion card. It works. That is one reason the other side uses it so much.

Charles

Don't see that the emotion card is working all that well for the antis - they would seem to have the lowest batting average in the league.

OTOH - stats n' facts has served us extremely well.
 

skidmark

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Don't see that the emotion card is working all that well for the antis - they would seem to have the lowest batting average in the league.

OTOH - stats n' facts has served us extremely well.

Is stats & facts are serving us so well, why are we constantly going back to oppose new and reissued FEELZ legislation? Why is the MSM continuing to cover the antis' FEELZ stuff while we barely get our organization's name mentioned and a "Well, I disagree" quote covered?

The truth is that the FEELZ continues to work for the antis, while the only ones paying attention to the statsa and facts are members of the choir.

Refute me by citing one MSM outlet that has reversed its editorial anti-gun stance because of stats and facts. (I have some ideas on how to do that, but when I've shared them I've been met with "We can't do that" more often than not.)

stay safe.
 

utbagpiper

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Don't see that the emotion card is working all that well for the antis - they would seem to have the lowest batting average in the league.

OTOH - stats n' facts has served us extremely well.

If I may gently disagree, the emotion card is all they've ever had going for them. Originally it was the emotion of racism that lead to slave codes and Jim Crow laws that kept guns out the hands of blacks, and then various recent immigrant groups. Then it was emotions that got them the 1934 that put severe restrictions on machine guns, short barreled shotguns, and suppressors. More emotions in 1968 that killed mail order and interState sales. Then of course the emotions that got them the scary looking gun ban of '94.

Every win the anti's have had for well over a century have been based on emotion. Their arguments today that lead them to whatever victories they get today (including those for Bloomberg's groups) and that slow us in our successes are based on emotions.

Even on this board we see how often a person invested emotionally in a position is unlikely to be swayed by mere facts. Polls and elections are rigged. People are stupid. Judges are wrong. Etc ad infinitum.

As I said, facts are crucial to our side. It is a good thing they back up our arguments.

But if we neglect to tell the emotional stories we are missing some key elements to help us advance our rights. Utah used to have three activists who were devastating in any committee testimony. One was a wheelchair bound woman who has since passed away. Another was a rape survivor. Yet another was a very pretty, petite little housewife. It was as difficult for any gun-grabber to argue with them without looking like a complete cad as it is for us to argue with the mourning mother whose child was killed by the negligent or criminal misuse of a gun.

Indeed, notice how often we find ourselves faced off against women. Without neglecting the facts at all, we do well when we can also include some non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual voices to our side.

Charles
 
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Grapeshot

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Is stats & facts are serving us so well, why are we constantly going back to oppose new and reissued FEELZ legislation? Why is the MSM continuing to cover the antis' FEELZ stuff while we barely get our organization's name mentioned and a "Well, I disagree" quote covered?

The truth is that the FEELZ continues to work for the antis, while the only ones paying attention to the statsa and facts are members of the choir.

Refute me by citing one MSM outlet that has reversed its editorial anti-gun stance because of stats and facts. (I have some ideas on how to do that, but when I've shared them I've been met with "We can't do that" more often than not.)

stay safe.
I don't see this so much in terms of how many of the media have been brought to the light, but rather if we are making definitive progress from the hitherto low point in our battle to promote, protect, and further our RKBAs.

To that I submit we have and continue to do so.
http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/g...ights-in-the-us-kind-of-surprising.453595623/

Please note that further progress has been made beyond what the above site depicts.
 

marshaul

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We need more pretty, petite women to speak about their personal need for an effective defense against 250 pound crazed meth heads. So much the better if one of the gals can tell her own sad story of rape and how she will never again be victimized.

We need a few homosexuals, transvestites, and other sexual minorities to speak of their personal need for effective self defense bigots.

We need some racial minorities to speak of their personal need to protect themselves from bigots, and to protect their homes and families from the gangs that urban police departments let run loose in poor, inner-city neighborhoods.

We need a few elderly and disabled persons to speak of their personal need to defend themselves, of their inability to run away from criminals, of how having a gun is part of enabling them to live independently despite their advancing years and declining physical abilities.

These aren't purely emotional arguments, I might point out. The physically weaker or disabled, the systematically unprivileged, folks who are disproportionately likely to be singled out for hate crimes... All of these folks have a genuinely greater need to protect themselves than do the exceptionally physically able, those wealthy enough to afford protection, etc.

Which isn't to say that my rights or needs are moot. It's to say that, if self-defense benefits me, you can be damn sure it benefits women, minorities, the elderly, the handicapped, etc. All of these groups are statiscally more likely to be victimized, and most less able to defend themselves, than I am.

(Note the category of "hate crimes" is semantically valid, even if it's a bad legal principle.)
 
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darrenlobo

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Facts vs Feelings

I started reading "Rise of the Anti-Media: In-forming America's Concealed Weapon Carry Movement" It explains a lot about the differences between us liberty lovers & the gun rights haters:

The American concealed weapon carry movement, consisting largely of political amateurs, has changed the direction of gun control policy in the United States in the last two decades, overcoming well-entrenched professional elites in the process. In Rise of the Anti-Media: In-forming America's Concealed Weapon Carry Movement, Brian Anse Patrick reports the results of his almost ten years of research on the concealed carry movement. He skillfully traces the emergence of a politically charged new American gun culture from the older traditional "hobby" gun culture. Patrick argues that the movement has succeeded because overlapping horizontal interpretive communities of new American gun culture developed their own anti-media of communication, bypassing mainstream media systems, creating a new and politically potent informational sociology that works to their benefit. Rise of the Anti-Media illuminates both how the American concealed weapon carry movement successfully reclaimed the territory of the Second Amendment as an unambiguously individual right, and how the anti-media of new American gun culture have reenergized the social action schematic underlying the First Amendment.
 

utbagpiper

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These aren't purely emotional arguments, I might point out. The physically weaker or disabled, the systematically unprivileged, folks who are disproportionately likely to be singled out for hate crimes... All of these folks have a genuinely greater need to protect themselves than do the exceptionally physically able, those wealthy enough to afford protection, etc.

All true. But it is the emotional side of legislators and voters that allow them to see and recognize this truth at a level other than purely cognitive.

Strapping young or evil middle aged white guys droning on about stats this and facts that have their place, but are easy for the masses to ignore. It is personally difficult for many of us to make the RKBA personal: to admit we "need" a gun to defend ourselves. If we do admit it, our enemies either paint us as emasculated wimps or as paranoid dellussionals.

But when someone who is clearly physically weaker makes that point, they cannot be dismissed so easily. Ditto regarding the member of an unpopular minority.

Charles
 

marshaul

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It is personally difficult for many of us to make the RKBA personal: to admit we "need" a gun to defend ourselves. If we do admit it, our enemies either paint us as emasculated wimps or as paranoid dellussionals.

Indeed. Perhaps you saw me dancing around that in the very post you quoted. I've gotten adept at it, methinks.

ETA: I guess my point was, by possessing the only arguments which are both emotional and rational, we're uniquely positioned to appeal to emotion and reason simultaneously. So, we can appeal to the thoughtless without yielding the intellectual high ground. We can have our cake and eat it too, something antis can only dream of.
 
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utbagpiper

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I guess my point was, by possessing the only arguments which are both emotional and rational, we're uniquely positioned to appeal to emotion and reason simultaneously. So, we can appeal to the thoughtless without yielding the intellectual high ground. We can have our cake and eat it too, something antis can only dream of.

That is exactly the point I wanted to make originally and you made it far better than I did or could.

Thank you.

Charles
 

skidmark

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I don't see this so much in terms of how many of the media have been brought to the light, but rather if we are making definitive progress from the hitherto low point in our battle to promote, protect, and further our RKBAs.

To that I submit we have and continue to do so.
http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/g...ights-in-the-us-kind-of-surprising.453595623/

Please note that further progress has been made beyond what the above site depicts.

Are you suggesting that the progress was due to stats & facts as opposed to the failure of FEELZ to hold up?

Because most of the progress illustrated was due to FEELZ - see how nothing happened there (and there and there and there) rather than stats & facts that only 0.01% ofCHP/CPL/CCW holders are arrested for firearm violations as opposed to xx% of the rest of the gun-possessing population, or that CHP/CPL/CCW holders shoot themselves ~300 times less than cops do. (aAnd those stats & facts are pretty close to FEELZ anyway.)

Sure, we are making progress in the legislative arena. But how much conversion are we getting by throwing stats & facts at the antis?

We get a newbie every once in a while, but conversion from hard-core anti to pro-RKBA? Not so much.

stay safe.
 

Grapeshot

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Are you suggesting that the progress was due to stats & facts as opposed to the failure of FEELZ to hold up?

Because most of the progress illustrated was due to FEELZ - see how nothing happened there (and there and there and there) rather than stats & facts that only 0.01% ofCHP/CPL/CCW holders are arrested for firearm violations as opposed to xx% of the rest of the gun-possessing population, or that CHP/CPL/CCW holders shoot themselves ~300 times less than cops do. (aAnd those stats & facts are pretty close to FEELZ anyway.)

Sure, we are making progress in the legislative arena. But how much conversion are we getting by throwing stats & facts at the antis?

We get a newbie every once in a while, but conversion from hard-core anti to pro-RKBA? Not so much.

stay safe.
This I tell you brother: You can't have one without the oooother.
 

since9

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We get a newbie every once in a while, but conversion from hard-core anti to pro-RKBA? Not so much.

Adopt a new tactic: "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Stick with it and never waver. It opens eyes after a while. Never give up. A lot of people have been "getting it" lately, particularly in light of what happened in France. Even the French government is having second thoughts, with some of them floating bills to rearm the French populace.
 
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