Saturday, August 6, 2011

The Bizarre Paranoia of Gun Owners

Of course it's not average gun owners, and it certainly doesn't start with them, but whether from the NRA or the GOA, as in this case, the marching orders go out and they are to be afraid.

Andrew Breitbart's Big Government published an article, opinion piece I suppose you could call it, although the dissemination of marching orders is never maligned with the title op-ed. It comes off more like an announcement.

No wonder Gun Owners of America (GOA) was sounding an alarm as the debt bill moved toward a final vote on Tuesday. They warned us that the “Super Congress” could pass gun control where there is neither filibuster nor Speaker of the House to intervene, and then “22 liberal Republicans can join the Congressional Democrats and the President in closing the gun show ‘loophole,’ banning semi-automatic weapons, creating a national handgun registration, or ordering state gun laws moot.” (Keep in mind there are plenty of John McCain’s out there in the Republican Party who’d cross the aisle in a heartbeat to shut down gun shows.)
Can you believe these guys? The U.S. economy is on the brink of imploding, we're engaged in four foreign wars, the oceans are dying and what are they concerned with? Congress COULD pass gun control.

It often seems the gun folks want to be persecuted.  When persecution doesn't exist, they pretend it does. They say it COULD happen.  I believe the gun manufacturers are behind all this, all the nonsense of stocking up on guns and ammo when Obama got elected, all the exaggerated claims about the UN small Arms Treaty, and now it's this, the Super Congress.

I figure it's the gun manufacturers even more than the gun rights organizations because the manufacturers have more to gain.  It's simple.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

7 comments:

  1. This sort of propaganda is common for the NRA and GOA. But those organizations wouldn't say such nonsense if they didn't think their loyalists wouldn't swallow it.

    My point is this: those who are the audience for such statements are already extremists or nearly so, and already exhibit paranoid beliefs and belief in conspiracy theories of that sort. We can't change those minds. The best we can do is counter the nonsense with rational arguments so as not to allow the NRA and GOA to confuse the public and lawmakers.

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  2. MikeB: “Can you believe these guys? The U.S. economy is on the brink of imploding, we're engaged in four foreign wars, the oceans are dying and what are they concerned with? Congress COULD pass gun control.”

    Can’t we say the same about you? All this is going on and registering guns is your big topic?

    What does say for your movement? You keep saying that gun control is coming, but we are paranoid if we believe you?

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  3. Actually I write about a lot of things; I don't think any of us are single issue oriented. Writing here focusing on one subject simply means that - this is a a blog that has a focus. Even within that focus, we have a pretty fair range of topics.

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  4. Good one TS. Although Dog Gone is perfectly right about our coverage of other topics and that we have a primary focus on guns control, I can't deny that you've made a good point.

    In fact many times I've been attacked by my antagonists for exactly this, "one-trick pony" they've called me.

    Nevertheless, the continuing distortion of reality in order to keep crying "they're coming for our guns," is going too far. And unlike the folks who do that, I don't put my agenda above those more world-shattering issues. I know it may seem like I do, but I don't really.

    In the big picture I understand that the gun issue is small potatoes, it's just that I like this issue more than the others. I don't think you can say that about the fear-mongers who preach gun confiscation is coming. For them, it's ALL about the guns.

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  5. Cowman, no seabee class code, no comments here. So give it up, or just give up.

    I participated in phone banks for the 2010 election, making phone calls in the MN CD6, Michele Bachmann's district. I was given the call lists for likely Republican, Tea Party, and conservative independent voters, in part because I was well versed in the facts of the issues that were key in that district. I had at my fingertips the fact checks data.

    Of those calls, an overwhelming majority of the pro-Bachmann, pro-right wing voters, as self-identified, were single issue. The two top issues were anti-abortion positions, and 2nd Amendment / pro NRA positions. It was discouraging to me to find how many of these voters were factually ill informed on their own single-issue topic, in many cases believing completely false things. The other distressing thing to me was how completely ill informed, and utterly and absolutely disinterested they were in any OTHER issues.

    I'll happily go toe to toe with almost anybody on any topic, although I confess to being weakest on sports and sports issues, at least some sports. The ones that interest me are perhaps not as widely popular as what interests most people in that area.

    So, while this blog has a more narrow focus, I have no problem with that. The other blogs for which I write and/or admin are far more wide ranging. If anything Mike and Jade probably have more depth in some aspects of gun issues than I do but I think I have credible breadth on the subject or at least I try!

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  6. MikeB: “I don't think you can say that about the fear-mongers who preach gun confiscation is coming. For them, it's ALL about the guns.”

    Lets back up for a second. These paranoid people you refer to didn’t say anything about a super congress confiscating guns door-to-door with jack booted thugs. This is what they said:

    22 liberal Republicans can join the Congressional Democrats and the President in closing the gun show ‘loophole,’ banning semi-automatic weapons, creating a national handgun registration, or ordering state gun laws moot.

    All these things are “common sense” gun control that you continually preach are coming. You actually preach quite more: long gun registration with full “may-issue” licensing for ownership. So, I ask… is anyone who believes you “paranoid”?

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  7. TS, now you wait a minute.

    If people raise the alarm about those common-sense suggestions, if they're already paranoid about those things happening, doesn't that mean they're over the top, "bizarre" if you will.

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