By Lee Williams
In Joe Biden’s America, the quickest way to marginalize an individual or a group is by labeling them as racist. It can happen to literally anyone, since the accusations don’t have to be supported by facts. Once the label has been attached, the legacy media take over.
The accused will then become the target of relentless coverage, mostly opinion pieces, which reinforces the claim of racism, whether it’s real or imagined. Their friends and supporters will then flee. There’s no appeal, since anyone who is forced to deny they’re racist only repeats the charge appears to be…more racist.
It was only a matter of time before the gun ban industry saw the utility of slanderous racist labelling and incorporated it into their battle plans.
A study released this week attempting to tar pro-gun youths – and by extension all of us – with the racist brush. The authors even added a little dose of “male supremacy” for seasoning.
Titled “U.S. Youth Attitudes on Guns,” the study was conducted by Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety, the problematic Southern Poverty Law Center, which is pivoting more toward gun control every day, and the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab, known as PERIL.
PERIL began by studying hate and extremist behavior in Germany. Their goal for operating in the United States is to “develop an empirically-tested, nationally-scalable intervention to prevent youth from radicalizing to white supremacist extremism.” According to their website, PERIL is funded by Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety, the SPLC, the assiduously anti-gun Joyce Foundation, the City of Seattle, other anti-gun nonprofits and…wait for it…the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Their research was divided into three phases:
Phase 1 examined the pro-gun media. “Based on the field expertise of our team, we identified and assessed 68 online, pro-gun media sources. Of these, 15 channels were selected, based on the wide range, high-volume and high-engagement levels they demonstrated,” the report states. “These included social media and user generated content platforms Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, 4chan and blogs.”
Phase 2 surveyed more than 4,000 youths aged 14 to 30. The authors, however don’t explain why 19- to 30-year-olds were considered youths for the purposes of their “research.”
Phase 3 is reportedly ongoing and consists of interviews and focus groups involving the 4,000 “youths” recruited for the study.
Findings
While the findings of Phase 3 are preliminary because of the ongoing nature of the “research,” the findings for Phases 1 and 2 are everything you’d expect three anti-gun groups to produce. A majority of the youths said “gun violence” was a problem. Forty-two percent claimed they had easy access to guns, and a quarter reported they had “experienced an active shooter lockdown.”
“Furthermore,” the authors noted, “a young person’s access to guns, identification with gun culture and exposure to media relating to guns correlated with concerning beliefs like support for male supremacy, belief that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to overthrow the government, higher levels of racial resentment and post-traumatic stress disorders.”
The authors noted in an appendix that they referenced more than 50 books, studies, reports, and news stories from television and print media, including CNN and The New York Times. Four of these reports were actually written by Everytown for Gun Safety.
Once the ink was dry on this “study,” the authors turned to another Bloomberg-owned anti-gun agitprop group, The Trace, to help get the word out.
“A new nationally representative survey examining young people’s attitudes toward guns and gun violence found that respondents who identify with gun culture often hold male supremacist and racist beliefs. The report found that young people who are most closely associated with guns are more likely to be white people people (sic) with symptoms of mental distress,” The Trace breathlessly announced in an email Monday morning.
Takeaways
This report bears all the hallmarks of a traditional Bloomberg PSYOP. There’s no doubt Everytown agreed to fund it only after the authors agreed on what their ultimate findings would be. But unlike their previous propaganda, this one targets our kids. That, friends, is inexcusable.
Our youth are neither racist nor male supremacists — whatever that means — nor are they mentally ill or suffering from PTSD or “higher levels of racial resentment.”
Bloomberg and his ilk have gone too far here and deserve to be called out for their lies, but that’s just the gun writer in me talking. Tiny Mike and his minions would warn you I’ve been exposed to the gun media for far too long.
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This story is part of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and is published here with their permission.
