"Marching On: A Conference on Gun Violence Prevention” (courtesy wesleying.org)

As regular readers know, TTAG regularly posts press releases from the gun control industry: MAIG, The Brady Campaign, Moms Demand Disarmament, The President of the United States, etc. We do so because the People of the Gun should know what their adversaries are thinking, planning and propagandizing. In that spirit, click here for a link to a live blog of “Marching On: A Conference on Gun Violence Prevention.” CT Against Gun Violence (CAGV) hosted the event, featuring Governor Dannel Malloy, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Congressman Jim Himes, Middletown Mayor Daniel Drew, Nicole Hockley (member, Sandy Hook Promise) and the mother of Dylan, one of the six-year-old victims of Sandy Hook. Make the jump for the “highlights” of BZOD’s blogging with my analysis . . .

[U.S. Senator Chris Murphy]: “The NRA has become detached from their own membership” because they adapt to the gun industry, which is trying to sell expensive guns to a dwindling group of survivalist gun nuts instead of selling to large numbers of people.

Ah yes, the divide and conquer strategy. Or, if we assume Murphy knows he’s lying through his teeth, the “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad NRA” pep talk.

Either spin helps the pro-gun position because it A) demoralizes the anti-gunners (why would they say that if the NRA wasn’t so powerful?) or B) encourages anti-gunners to underestimate the NRA’s grassroots support.

The problem here: if the uninformed voter starts to believe that the NRA is the gunmakers’ bitch. Then the “gun control rebate” becomes about profits vs. people rather than individual rights vs. tyranny. The gun control folks recognize this “re-framing” strategy well enough [see: Patrick Comerford’s comments below]. They also know the value of repetition.

[Mayor Dan Drew]: “The NRA is actually a front for all the weapons manufacturers in the U.S. and they are advertising themselves as something they are not and that is detestable.” Applause…!

Drew: “The weapons industry is not interested in human life. They are interested in profits, and the NRA is a front for the weapons industry.”

So the “NRA = death merchants” meme is the flavor of the month. The NRA should amp-up their “I Am the NRA” campaign lickety-split.

Drew: “They talk about how someone is coming for your guns. That is simply not true.”

Drew: “Wayne LaPierre said after the shooting at the Washington Naval Yard that the problem was ‘There were not enough good guys with guns.’ What’s a larger group of good guys with guns than the United States military?”

You gotta laff at the civilian disarmament industry’s constant drumbeat: no one’s coming for your guns. To paraphrase Pogo, we have met the someone and it is Mayor Dan Drew.

Also note the misdirection about the U.S. Navy Yard massacre. The anti-gunnners are pushing back hard against the fact—I repeat fact— that the D.C. killing ground was a gun-free zone, and they’re doing it with deliberate disinformation. That’s pretty low; it disses the victims, who were defenseless against their killer. But there are no depths to which the antis will not sink. In case you didn’t know.

[Neil Heslin, the father of Jessie Lewis, another victim at Sandy Hook Elementary School]: “I’ve learned a lot about politics in the last year. One thing that I’ve learned is that I don’t want anything to do with it.”

And yet there he is. Enabled by the CAGV and the gun control industrial complex. Nice. Still, nothing beats a victim eh? Maybe . . . a survivor? Where are the armed survivors of violence in the public eye?

[Lisa Labella, Director, Advocacy & Outreach for CAGV]: “If I need to show my license to buy Sudafed, I think I should have to show my license to buy firearms.” Applause.

These are the same folks who scream racism if a citizen has to show their license to vote. It’s still not clear to low-info voters that the right to keep and bear arms is a right. The antis exploit this ignorance to equate firearms to objects to which Americans are not entitled by natural and Constitutional law.

Labella identifies three prongs for gun control activism: change the conversation, change the culture, change the law.

In that order. Also note: without the mainstream media’s support these people would be toast. Saying that, several of the speakers talked about the advantages of social media. Facebook (with comments disabled) and Twitter (which doesn’t allow a meaningful interchange of idea or facts) are their new field of battle.

[Ron Pinciaro, executive director of CT Against Gun Violence]: A: There are gun buyback programs, but Pinciaro is concerned that we’re not getting the guns off the street that we really want. Might not be the best bang for our buck.

Interesting that Ron realizes that gun buybacks are kabuki theater. Try and get him to say that in public. Or confront him with this quote next time you bump into him, ’cause no media rep’s gonna do it.

[CT Governor Dannel P. Malloy]: Malloy says that the idea that you need a gun in your home to protect yourself is absurd, and that 19,000 people will die in the U.S. this year will die due to suicides.

Armed self-defense is absurd. Part of the gun control industry’s relentless campaign to say that the right to keep and bear arms is unnecessary. Again, the People of the Gun need to counter that with equal relentlessness with specific examples of defensive gun use. Where non-gun people can see them! Where’s I Survived . . . With a Gun program on a major TV channel?

Now Malloy is pushing against violent video games. Ugh.

Good to know the gun control crowd are making the same mistake as the NRA in the push against violent video games. Ugh indeed.

“We can’t have what happened in our state what happened in Colorado.”

Yes we can! Well, in my dreams. Shows the Colorado recall rattled their cages. More of the that please.

“Let me address street crime. In almost every case I’m aware of in CT, the gun used was an illegally acquired gun. It is rare that a gun that was purchased after a background check was used. Until we close that loophole on a national basis, we’re going to be in an ever-increasing danger of that happening. That’s why having laws on a state-by-state basis is good, but not nearly good enough.”

Close what loophole? Didn’t Malloy just say that criminals use illegally acquired guns without background checks? Anyway, as you can see, Malloy and the antis still have a hard-on for federal gun control. Always have. Always will.

[Patrick Comerford, community organizer who works with Planned Parenthood of Southern New England]: Internet comment sections are “the long road to nowhere.” Don’t read them or engage in them. We want to connect to the people who aren’t thinking about this issue.

Don’t read them! Ha! A gun grabber’s admitting that he doesn’t want acolytes to consider the facts, lest they question their zealotry. He/she’s also revealing that gun control advocates are targeting low-information voters. Which is exactly what the POTG should be doing, too. You listening Wayne?

Picture of Wayne LaPierre. Murmur of displeasure and discomfort ripples through the crowd.

Ye olde rules for radicals: personalize the enemy. Who’s the bad guy of gun control? Bloomberg? Good choice but he’s retiring from the field. Mark Giffords? Must choose.

[CAGV Board of Directors Lestin] Trainor: “We can agree to stop revictimizing urban gun violence victims through our language. We can agree to stop implying that they are complicit in their own victimization.”

Trainor knows that gun control advocates are vulnerable to the argument that “gun violence” is a gang-related issue. That the problem isn’t guns but deeper, more problematic issue of urban culture. Columns like this one from Phil Mushnik at today’s New York Post must scare her witless.

Trainor is pissed about the “bifurcated way that we discuss gun violence” – bifurcating between mass shootings and “street violence.”

Again, the gun control industry depends on blurring the lines between one type of firearms-related fatality and another. ALL gun deaths are “gun violence”: suicides, gang-banging, negligent discharges, old-fashioned homicides, etc. If gun rights advocates lead the public to make distinctions between them, the focus goes off the guns. That’s bad for their business.

In short, the truth is bad for gun control advocates. And the more we shine the light into the dark corners of their confabs, the better prepared we’ll be to confront their strategy of disarmament disinformation. If you hear of an anti-gun confab in your neck of the woods, please, blog it for us. For the children. Seriously. [h/t TimK]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

47 COMMENTS

  1. Other then the same old droning about the NRA.
    Its the usual old lines over and over again.
    Its not like I don’t care because I do.
    But Ill never understand the thought patterns of these aliens amongst us.

  2. These tactics look like they were taken from the communist insurgency handbook perhaps we POTG should start studying counter insurgency and find an effective means of countering this onslaught.

      • Army fm3-24 is the counter insurgency manual btw you can find it almost anywhere online I’ve been reading it and thus far haven’t found anything too useful

      • Yes. I rarely watch 60 minutes, but they have a part tonight about most mass shooters having something in common. It kind of hints about them being on psychotropic drugs. Tonight will be one of those rare 60 minute nights. With fingers crossed.

        • The media will steer a wide berth around anything that implicates the pharmaceutical industry in *any* way because that’s where their money comes from.

          There is huge cash influx from the pharma industry for drugs to cover everything from your liver, to your stomach, to your shaky nerves, to your depression, and to your winky.

          NO WAY are they ever going to go against that gravy train.

          NRA in the bag of the gun industry? Ha.

          Media in the bag of big pharma? Fact.

          This might be their weak spot if it can be exploited and a light shone on it.

    • It’s almost a word-for-word/message-for-message rehash of their Prevention of Gun Violence Through Effective Messaging Gun Control handbook.

  3. This is actually delightful news. They repeating the same old crap to each other in an attempt to salve their wounds.

    Most importantly, the focus on the NRA as their boogeyman. So long as they believe their own BS about it, they will continue underestimating it, and they will continue losing to it.

  4. Blog a gun control conference? But I thought that we were supposed to avoid stupid people doing stupid things in stupid places.

    • I blogged their blog, putting myself at a suitable remove. But you know me Ralph; I’d LOVE to have been there. We gotta go behind enemy lines. It’s for the children.

        • YES! RF acting suave (more suave than usual?) in an expensive suit while fighting low-info d-bags in zero gravity!

        • Sadly, the event was hosted at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, CT. The antis had a an enormous “No Firearms Allowed on Wesleyan University campus” sign posted at the entrances, which carries the force of law in the Unconsitutional State. A couple Connecticut Citizens Defense League members attended the event incognito. What’s funny is, amongst everyone there, they each won the raffle! One prize was a pictorial encyclopedia to firearms, and the other I believe was some anti-gun drivel.

          One of the CCDL members asked one of the women in attendance, a professed therapist, how she felt about the Gun Free Zone sign and she responded that she felt much safer knowing no one in attendance could have a gun…. Note, she forgot to say *legally* have a gun. Because signs always stop criminals and mass murderers. Unreal.

      • Had I known this was going on, I would have been there since Wesleyan is about 30 minutes away from me.

        I’m just at a loss for words for how shitty this makes me feel about CT, I used to be proud coming from CT but they just want to make it crappier and crappier. They even so much as admit that they know guns are not the real problem; it is gang violence and “urbanized violence”. WTF then why carry on? The only reasons I can think of is because it is a convenient distraction to hide something else or they have a personal axe to grind.

        And for f***s sake Governor Malloy get a reality check. No one needs a gun for self defense? Says the governor of the state with one of the most publicized home invasions ever (Cheshire home invasion) and plenty of towns without a police department that rely on a resident state trooper to cover their area (meaning at least 20 minutes for the cops to come unless you are fortunate enough to live near UConn).

  5. [Mayor Dan Drew]: “The NRA is actually a front for all the weapons manufacturers in the U.S. and they are advertising themselves as something they are not and that is detestable.” Applause…!

    Was he actually ELECTED mayor?

  6. All this does is make me wanna go town to town opening gun stores that carry everything from muskets to machine guns… is that odd??

  8. Is it just me, or are they running out of ideas?? This is the same crap they’ve been spewing since Newtown. Seriously, I’m getting the impression that they are running into the desperate category.

    And thats a double edged sword.

  9. I hear that the NRA is a front for gun manufacturers. Is there any proof that their funds aren’t drawn from “donors” from commercial gun industry? I am a member of the NRA, but I don’t know what percentage of their funds come from member dues and donations.

  10. Drew: “They talk about how someone is coming for your guns. That is simply not true.”

    Yeah that angle is getting old, and it doesn’t work anymore when demo-rat controlled places like New York, Illinois, Kalifornia, Conneticut, and now Maryland prove that yes they actually ARE coming for your guns.

  11. I love how these gun grabbers act like there is one state of gun ownership and we need to discuss what to do about these few hundred gun owners. 1-1 people to gun ratio in the U.S., you say things like, “we aren’t coming for your guns” because you damn well now that action would last a whole of one neighborhood. So they keep picking away and keep uttering the same ridiculous nonsense, “we don’t want your guns!”, keep telling yourself that B.S. because nobody believes you.

  12. After watching the Giants get whipped again, it sure is nice to get a healthy portion of schadenfreude reading / listening to these morons. We’ve got them on the run. Time to press the advantage ! An injunction before the new year in NY would be nice. Some good news out of MD would be fantastic too. One step back, two steps forward !

  13. The anti-gun crowd will never accept that average Joes and Janes with guns are as effective as first responders as the police or military. They’re half-right. A lot of the average Joes and Janes aren’t trained like the police or military. But then again, we apparently have a much higher success rate in DGUs than the police. Go figure.

    If anything the anti-gun crowd see armed citizens as being part of the problem. In Newtown, it was the mom’s fault for owning guns. In Aurora, it was the gun’s fault for the high body count, etc. They either blame the gun or they blame the person that was murdered or accosted to get the gun.

    They view law-abiding gun owners as an easy source of evil guns that criminals can use to get firearms to do their crimes. We’re part of the problem because we are apparently losey-goosey with our firearms. Or are we? Last I checked, Adam Lanza’s mother was murdered before he could get her guns. That doesn’t sound passive to me.

    So what are they really doing? Blaming the victim perhaps? Kind of ironic, right? They blame the victim when a gun owner dies but when they forced 20 children to endure the 30-minute police response time for the Newtown shooting, well gee, it’s all about the type of weapon used in the shooting.

    God forbid anyone should have been armed on the good guy’s side in Newtown. Who knows what would’ve happened. Probably wouldn’t be a story because Adam Lanza would have two in the chest and one in the balls.
    Irony folks. And hypocrisy.

    • Naw, mikeyb ain’t dead, he just looks and smells the part. He could do a walk on part on the “Walking Dead” show and not need makeup.

      Can you imagine being the poor guy that has to crawl into the sheets with that regularly?

  15. excellent analysis – I don’t want to sound like a hanger-on, RF, but it’s appreciated that you’re a very talented writer and you’ve got a unique style. I came for the gun reviews and blog posts, stayed for the wit and insight. Onward

  16. I recognized Lestina Trainor from the ct hearings where the majority of people were there speaking for gun rights and against the bills the legislature was considering. It was was more like 90% opposed to the draconian gun prohibition and restrictions on legal gun owners . Her testimony is on this link on YouTube, but unlike the anti gun channels comments are allowed and they pretty much tell it all. http://youtu.be/t0RkDQSdLuk

  17. How dare the NRA represent its members by supporting the manufacturers who provide them with their tools. Shameful. (In musical grandfather clock tones) SHut the f*ck up, shut the f*ck up….

  18. These people always talk about the NRA like it forces or tricks gun owners into buying and selling guns.

    Most of us grew up with parents and grandparents that owned guns. Most enjoyed owning and shooting them. We involved ourselves in sports and activities that involved firearms use, but a whole lot of other great skills as well. We did it because it was part of our culture.

    These people have experienced none of that. Maybe they saw it on TV, but they didn’t like it when they did.

    They can’t understand that we would actually be buying guns on our own free will, and not by coercion or propaganda. They’re just part of the lives we live, and a slice of American culture we live in that was once a good thing, but is now persistently marginalized and attacked.

    Their position comes from a lifetime of complete ignorance regarding firearms ownership and American outdoor sportsman culture.

  20. Now here is the important question… Did they have their minute of hate? Where was the picture of Goldstein?

  23. Sounds like Mr. Comerford might be pissed because he and Planned Perishing of Personhood don’t have a monopoly on murdering children. Hell awaits you, BABY KILLER.

Comments are closed.