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Give her a couple of brownie points for not pulling “gun bully” out of her well-worn quiver of defensive epithets yet again. That one was getting so tedious. Still, in response to our post calling her out on the laughable lies she told this past weekend about Moms Demand Action’s membership and effectiveness, our favorite former PR shill, Shannon Watts, falls back on two comfortable oldies but goodies. So rather than even attempt . . .

to justify her “two million supporters” whopper or that knee-slapper implication that the Moms had anything at all to do with passing Colorado’s gun control laws, she chose to focus instead on our little jabs about all the sleepover fun she and the girls no doubt had at bootcamp in Denver.

Clearly, in Shannon’s book a misogynist is anyone who calls a female out on a lie. If that’s the definition in play, we’re guilty as charged.

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138 COMMENTS

    • What I am scratching my head over is:

      1. Why link to this article when there are others with content that could be more strongly interpreted as sexist and…

      2. Why in the HELL would she link to an article that makes her look like a lying idiot?

    • Can’t really be all that surprised with her response now, can we? After all, once you dropped, “all the pillow fights, doing each other’s hair, making prank calls and playing light as a feather, stiff as a board,” into the first paragraph, you gave Shannon something to latch on to. She probably didn’t even read the whole thing – all she needed to do was find something demeaning to women and she was off to the races.

      It would have been interesting to see her response had the admittedly sexist references been absent. Probably not much different.

      • I have to agree. We have a policy, which I agree with, to delete comments that are ad hominem and otherwise directly offensive or inappropriate, etc, so as not to give the antis emotional ammo against us. The comments about pillow fights and other teen girl sleepover stereotypes were unnecessary and demeaning and, as we see, were directly used against us to discredit and obfuscate the valid arguments in the write-up and to recruit and strengthen bonds of those sympathetic to whatever Ms. Watts’ group is called today.

        We spend so much time talking about how the anti side is driven by emotion and can’t have a reasoned debate and stick to facts, but then we go coloring our facts with such childish B.S. that it distracts from the important parts and gives the other side ‘ammo’ against us and sympathy for them.

  2. If you do not bow down to the harpies, you are a misogynist. If you call them out for their unparalleled proclivity to bullsh1t, you are a misogynist. If you successfully advocate for gun rights, you are a misogynist.

    It’s all part of the right wing war on women. You know, the war where only Ted Kennedy had an actual body count.

    • Hey, if they are gonna change the definition, everyone’s a misogynist.
      If it takes a fancy word that half the country can’t define to insult someone, you aren’t insulting them.

    • Wonder if Shannon knows that Ted Kennedy’s car has killed more women than all the guns of everyone I know put together…

      • Since you brought up Ted Kennedy, I’d like to tell you all about what I heard on KGO radio in San Jose Kalifornia. This happened back when the hostages were being held in Iran.
        Pete McCloskey was a guest that day He had just got back from Washington, and the show MC asked him if there was anything new going on. Pete told the MC there was a good news/bad news story going around. The good news was that the Ayatollah had agreed to exchange the hostages for Jane Fonda!
        The bad news was that Ted Kennedy was going to drive her to the airport!

        • My favorite Ted Kennedy joke of all time came from my friend’s sister. After JFK JR went down off the coast of Martha’s Vinyard:

          [Heavy sigh] I remember the kinder, more innocent days when the Kennedys used to drown their women one at a time.

  3. Most of feel the same way over the panhandlers standing on street corners of larger cities and towns with cardboard signs with any variety of BS written lies, such as anything helps, God bless, or disabled vet or whatever non-unique malarkey these folks think will tug at our non-existent heart strings.

    My reaction to every single one of them is that of repulsion, and most of the time, I’m adding up the points I’d get should I mistake the brake and gas peddle and accidentally run one over.

    This inner sadness I feel when I see these dredges of society polluting my inner bliss is exactly how I feel every single time I see or read anything about Shannon Watts. Thanks TTAG for the creation of a momentary dark cloud that watered down an average moment on my life.

    • I guess time is a flat circle for you?

      Goodness, let me buy you some ice cream or something, before you actually run someone over with your car…

      • You’re as moody as Lance Armstrong, bud. “With all that blood and attitude, you’re like a menstrual cyclist!”

      • Ice cream? Gee would you? I’d like! I did say “momentary dark cloud that watered down an average moment on my life” That was meant to convey the brevity of it. I’m not ready for a Valium and beer just yet, But in reality, thanks for the warm thought as that’s much more than I have for Mrs. Watts.

      • @HereticalPolitik I’m quite alright. You must have have not understood the meaning of “momentary” and “moment”
        I’d send a thank you not to my creative writing teacher from high school, but most of them have passed on now.

    • Mark Lloyd wrote:

      “Most of feel the same way over the panhandlers standing on street corners of larger cities and towns with cardboard signs with any variety of BS written lies, such as anything helps, God bless, or disabled vet or whatever non-unique malarkey these folks think will tug at our non-existent heart strings.”

      I hate to tell you this, some of those dirtbags are making a lucrative income with those signs.

      They wouldn’t be standing there if it wasn’t working.

      Never underestimate the gullibility of the average American. For proof, see the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

      • @Geoff PR
        I NEVER underestimate the gullibility of the American public. Most readers of TTAG are keenly aware of it to a certain degree as it’s seen daily via the mainstream media. It’s a constant attempt at manipulation. For Pete’s sake, it starts in grade school with that character trait garbage. But you never see the word “individuality” Oh no, they want obedient drones.

        As far as the panhandlers, some make money, but I hardly would call it lucrative, although that term is relative. If you are a bum with no income, then you could call it lucrative. If your compensation is in the six figure range, then it’s not very lucrative.

        I know here in the Spokane Valley, they drafted an ordinance over the panhandling because those dirt bags were on every corner. It became an eye-sore until the citizens demanded action, and got it.

        • I was referring the unemployed bums.

          ‘Round here in Florida a typical day for them is to wake up at the shelter, panhandle for a few hours and then buy their drugs-booze and back to shelter and pass out for the night. Next day, rinse, lather, repeat.

          The ones I really despise try to pull the clean-your-windshield stunt.

  4. Hey Shannon. If you read my message – quit your job and do some traveling. You could really use a long vacation after the hard work you’ve done. I hear that Rural Ghana is beautiful at this time of year. That or Ukraine. Both great choices.

    • Shannon would be hot in Kiev, she could lobby the Ukrainian government for more gun control. The Ukrainian citizens desperately need the NRA. On second thought, maybe she could go to the Crimea and advocate gun control for the spontaneous Russian militias located there.

      • personally, Ukranian women are smokin’ hot. No, Shannon would fare better in the Tribal Areas of NW Pakistan.

        • Western Ukrainian as well as Moldova, Czech Repub, and Poland. Eastern Ukraine? Not so much. There’s still a lot of ‘Soviet’ in there, and I don’t mean Moscow-Bond-girl Soviet.

    • I think someone on here awhile back invited her on a trip and claimed they could “convert her in one night” maybe that TTAG follower will ante up and take her away.

      • that was me. she won’t return my calls. {sigh}

        well, I guess I will have to have my wife put on the Shannon wig again tonite.

        • To complete the look she’ll have to impersonate that strange confused look that Ms. Watts often has in photos … You know, the one that resembles a well-trained dog that’s balancing a treat on its nose with its head cocked slightly to one side.

          Don’t believe me? Just add the caption “Bacon, Bacon… Bacon … SQUIRREL !” to any photo of her.

        • You got me laughing over here Dirk.
          In all fairness, she is a public figure, doing PR work for a public firm, financed by a bazillionaire. Any and all hits she takes are fair, open and public. Just like “uncle double barrel Joe”, Ted Cruze, Ted “I-killed-Mary-Jo” Kennedy, et al.
          Shannon, go away.

  5. I can see how an obtuse person would go for “misogyny” from the slumber party joke, but why “sexism”?

    My guess is they know who their public is, and felt it was safer to add “sexism” because “misogyny” is a big word.

    • I thought misogyny+sexism was kind of like flapjacks+pancakes.

      Or maybe I’m wrong, because I’m a white male religious gun rights advocate and therefore evil.

    • “Misogyny” is the word of the week. Now that they can spell it, the Demanding Moms must use it in at least one tweet each day.

        • I don’t think that means quite what you think it does, my friend …

          How about misopistolia?

          (Apologies to all you folks who actually know Latin…)

        • John L, “misopistiola”? This is segues to the Viet girl in FMJ who will ‘love you long time’ saying “me so the li oma”.

          Just a thought.

  6. Knowing that MDA prowls these articles (looking for more misogyny and sexism, no doubt), I always wonder what goes thought their minds when they realize they’re free to discuss the issues here, but we aren’t free to discuss the issue there? Doesn’t that raise some questions in their heads? How righteous can your cause be if you can’t defend it?

    • I don’t think anything raises a question in their heads about the righteousness of their cause and the cosmic correctness of the false information they knowingly spread to try to advance it. Heck, even if you try to hand them an opening (eg Can you show me where any of the factual assertions I made to you is wrong or false?) they just blow right past it. And if you show where their assertions (eg 40% of all gun sales are made without a NICS check, 74 school shootings have occurred since Newtown, an AR 15 can empty a 30-round magazine in one second, etc, etc) are patently false, they blow right by that too, squalling about how you are just “quibbling”, and will even quote the same crap back at you a few minutes later. Their only stock in trade is falsity and ignorance and irrationality, and they wonder why they can’t get any more traction than they do in the seats of political power.

    • What goes through their mind?

      Nothing. The collective head is an echo chamber. With Comments disabled.

    • Shannon can’t play the race card with me at least, other than I am calling her racist b/c she won’t respond to my overtures. . . . . She hates the brothers.

    • Shannon’s not about debate or argument or else she’d allow challenging questions and comments on MDA’s social media. Shannon’s about blind raw emotion and manipulating that emotion, hence the bomb throwing with words like sexism and misogyny. It’s nothing but an emotional, Pavlovian attack she and her minion will hurl to try to bully people into shutting up or to not even challenge them.

      Shannon, the reason why we can’t have a “discussion about common sense gun reform” is simply that you do not want a discussion; you want a mindless mob to whip into a totalitarian frenzy, much like the villagers in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. No discussion starts with “you are evil, you hate children and want them to die.” With your mindset locked into pure hatred against your issue opponents, we cannot ever co-exist, because you won’t allow it. I know it, the gun community knows it, and now you Shannon can choose. Continue down the path hoping you can inspire your side to violence to get you way, or you can become reasonable and open you mind to an actual, factual discussion.

      • Precisely. She’s a trained, presumably skilled, public relations professional. As such, her mission isn’t about debate, discussion, or compromise. It’s all about marketing and advertising. This isn’t necessarily bad – it’s the American Way after all – but it should never be confused with “opening a discussion.”

        Shannon is selling a product – gun control – for her employer. In this way, she’s just the same as a marketing executive selling breakfast cereal for General Foods. They don’t want public debate about the nutritive benefits of Froot Loops, nor do they want a public discussion of the public’s right to gluten-free breakfast. They want to sell cereal.

        Along the way, if they start an online club for kids to join, play online games, or cut out toucan birds from the backs of cereal boxes, it’s a pleasant and mindless way to convince the children that Froot Loops are fun to eat. Kind of like what Shannon and Bloomie are doing with all the Moms, building them a cute little clubhouse where they can all play together, tell tall tales and have singalongs, and convince themselves that what they are doing is somehow important.

  8. “Misogyny” = the new “racism”

    When the real stuff starts to run out, the people who stand to benefit most from its continued existence will redefine the term more loosely (for example, not wanting to force other people at gunpoint, i.e. taxation, to pay for contraceptives = misogyny) or stir up false examples where none exist (Azalea Cooley’s faked cross burning).

  11. Once again, the only people who give a darn about Shannon Watts are her paid followers (aka armed body guards), and the writers here at TTAG.

  13. seriously? she’s just calling you names and hoping people don’t click on the links and just believe her that they apply.

  15. I guess I have some old boots which have been that longer than Shannon has been alive. I think those old duck boots have trodden in numerous swamps and ponds while duck hunting for well over a generation now. Though they smell of that and much presence of feet, they smell better than what Shannon is cooking.

  16. so I took a look at her new (professionally airbrushed) twitter pic (wow, all 6,950 followers). . . . and I gotta wonder one thing Shannon. . . . Did Bloomberg give you that pearl necklace?

  18. W A R N I N G !! W A R N I N G !! W A R N I N G !! W A R N I N G !! W A R N I N G !!

    NO EATING OR DRINKING WHILE WATCHING THIS VIDEO. . . . .YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

    The shine is off the penny. I actually feel sorry for John when (if) he is looking at this every morning

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i6sNWTvRr0

    • Note that this video is from April 2014 when the NRA Convention was in the corporate (Shannon’s personal) backyard of Moms Demand Action . . . .at :23 seconds, she says she has 150,000 thousand members. . . . but come August they have 2 Million?? HOLY DOG ROCKETS BATMAN!!!! Now that is marketing membership growth !!! Sign her up to run the corporate campaigns of any fortune 10 company of her choosing . . . . or not.

      • The SOB is right on Israel and their current/ongoing battle with the forces of evil. Perhaps proof of the stopped clock theorem.

        • the problem is that SOB is there in Israel saying they have a RIGHT to protect themselves from attack . . . . and yet he would deny it here. I pray he goes for a pep rally in a settlement and his body guards have the Blue FLu . .. .

  20. Over at the Everytown FB page they are “focusing” on domestic violence issues and if you even suggest that a woman should have been armed they will attack you and say “you’re blaming the victim”. lol

      • Well they were and then late yesterday I got blocked and a bunch of others did too.

        They don’t like it when you act rational and provide facts. haha

  22. When an opponent in a debate begins to use ad-hominems, you know you’ve won. It means they don’t have any reasoned argument (not that they ever had one).

  23. I must admit that some of the statements in the article left ttag open for the cliams of misogyny and sexism. Like the comment on pillow fights. With that said, why is it that people and especially people like Shannon have to claim some type of martyr victimized status when someone makes a joke about them. Are we not thick-skin in this country. I’ve seen many people on this site refer to themselves as OFWG showing our ability to roll with the punches. Shannon take a cue from TTAG and start arguing the content and instead of waiving a bloody flag like a helpless woman that you criticise this site for calling out as.

    • Among other things, Shannon and crew pretend to be professional victims. Sort of a passive-aggressive bully.

  24. I re-read the TTAG post on the MOM meeting and tried real hard to find anything mysogenistic. Didn’t find a single thing. Why am I not surprised?

  25. We’re looking at this all wrong. We should do a Shannon Watts group buy and pay her to promote our agenda instead. Obviously she’s in it for the money, just like she was with Monsanto, so what’s to stop us from pooling our funds together and paying her to shill for us instead? Mom’s Demand Action… For gun rights.

  28. “If you’ve been busy having a life, you probably didn’t know that Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America held a big Bloomberg-funded “leadership bootcamp” and sleepover in Denver this weekend. That means that between the all the pillow fights, doing each other’s hair, making prank calls and playing light as a feather, stiff as a board, attendees spent most of their time…”

    The ‘sleepover’ and pillow fight comments, etc. could be construed to be a bit insulting, and yes, even misogynistic.

    Everything else you called them out on, though, is spot-on. It doesn’t matter whether they’re men or women. Lies are lies, no matter the source.

      • You’re right. I don’t think TTAG or its staff really dislike, despise, or are prejudiced against women. But the comment is someone demeaning, and insulting to a whole group of ‘adult’ women who no doubt had NO pillow fights, etc.

        If TTAG and other gun-rights groups want to be taken seriously, they need to take the high road, and not stoop to their level of name calling and insults. Stick to the facts.

        • “pillow fights” does not rise to the level of misogyny. Not even close. crying wolf all of the time eventually makes the cry go unheard. Like arguing everything is racism first.

        • Actually, I think the pillow fights thing would be a compliment. A bunch of sour old broads wouldn’t have a pillow fight, a bunch of young hot chicks would. It’s our equivalent of telling your girlfriend “is this your sister?” when you meet her mother. See, we were trying to be sweet!

    • I – for one- am very glad that those derisive remarks were in the article: Without those, Shannon would have never “linked-back” to it! Anyone reading her Twitter-pated now has a chance to read the truth about her group. And she only makes herself look like an idiot for the “misogyny and sexism” non sequitur.

  30. Doesn’t matter what the facts are, it all about the viewpoint of the speaker, and what she feels.
    This is called the “narrative” and should you dare to disagree, you are “denying her reality, ”
    and therefore, a bad person. Since you are male and she is female, its misogyny.

    Yes, its nuts, but there are entire departments in university dedicated to the post modern revisionism, critical theory, vying with one another to be the most radical in justification of this nonsense, and how it aplies to psychology, feminism, history, and diversity.

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanarrative

    So there is a generation of brainwashed confused colege kids who are susceptible to this Orwellian thought control.

    I really dont blame Shannon too much…you say this kind of stuff enough and you start to believe it. Surround youself with fellow travelers and acolytes, refuse to debate facts, like on their FakeBook page, and brand anyone who disagrees as a bad person, and you have a nice tidy little alternative universe going for you.

    • …there are entire departments in university dedicated to the post modern revisionism, critical theory, vying with one another to be the most radical in justification of this nonsense, and how it aplies [sic] to psychology, feminism, history, and diversity.

      This is the main reason why most American kids look like abject dufuses compared to Asian or European kids, where skills and concepts useful in life are taught in high schools and colleges. Petty, trivial things like math and science.

  31. Proper response to that:

    “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

    • I can hear Shannon now channeling White Goodman from Dodgeball:

      “I’m not as dumb as you think I think I thought I was once. “

  32. Perhaps the slumber party jokes gave the ammo to the anti’s
    or they just all got some major twists up in their panties!

    (Note to people with easilly hurt feel feels, “panties in a twist” is a common gender neutral saying in my region; so there)

  33. Too bad cowgirlup left the building. I missed her calling all us cavemen misogynists. And what’s wrong with pillowfights?

  34. Shannon-if you are SO SURE that your statements are sound, open up your forum to outside comment. Anyone who feels secure in their argument would have no problem with facing the opposition.

    Debate as opposed to pontificate.

    On a personal note-I would LOVE to see her debate Colion Noir………….if only-for the children ™.

  35. “Clearly, in Shannon’s book a misogynist is anyone who calls a female out on a lie. If that’s the definition in play, we’re guilty as charged.”

    Or she’s finally coming out of the closet as a lying misandrist in addition to being a lying charlatan.

  37. It goes without saying that comparing your opponents position with children is a common tactic in a heated debate; children are young and inexperienced, making them the perfect metaphor for incompetence. It also doesn’t need to be said that, when given the chance, their side is more willing to do (and more practiced in doing) it than ours is; in fact it would be nice if someone put together all the anti OC “little boys playing soldier” and small penis insults from their facebook pages and tweeted them back one at a time.

  38. You think a gun blogger joking that group made up of exclusively women are having a slumber party once is the same as the group of women seriously calling all gun owners “stupid, testosterone filled, white trash, racist bigots” incessantly? Did you get lost on your way to tumblr?

  40. Does Shannon appear to be a …
    (A) high maintenance twit
    (B) spoiled little rich girl
    (C) narcissistic twit
    (D) snobby twit
    (E) twit stricken with penis envy

  41. Isn’t misogyny just a form of sexism? Why go with the double pointed slander? One or the other honey, you don’t get both becasue they’re basically the same thing.

  42. Misogynist…get ready to hear this word. When hillary runs everyone who disagrees will be labeled a misogynist.

    Google…”the misandry bubble”. It will go down as one of the most brilliant articles ever written. Its a wake up call to all men to stop and look at how feminism has destroyed western civilization.

    • I just started reading it. It seems the opposite of brilliant. Tedious and pandering to men who feel powerless. Also I think he is reaching for the thesaurus a bit much. I shall continue to plod through it, but really, so far it is not as great as you think it is.

    • I’m not a Hillary fan and I sincerely hope she doesn’t run. But I’m at a loss as to how feminism (well, first wave feminism, anyway) is somehow a “war against men.” (Second wave and third wave feminism, IMO, are just stupid, but that’s another story.) I don’t buy the notion that Western society “has quietly become a civilization that undervalues men and overvalues women, where the state forcibly transfers resources from men to women creating various perverse incentives for otherwise good women to conduct great evil against men and children, and where male nature is vilified but female nature is celebrated.”

  43. Hate to come down on her side, but the article could have been written without the jabs of pre-teen girl sleepover.

    • Have to agree. Stick with the facts when discussing Shannon & her coven. The facts, quotes, & tweets are damning enough.

      • Isn’t “coven” a word that connotes a group of witches? How misogynist of you. (See how easy that is?)

  44. My response to Shannon would be “so what? What does that have to do with gun rights and gun control?” This is the truth about GUNS not the truth about WOMEN. Not that I think any of us are sexist to begin with, but I can’t find a reference on the TTAG site stating a stance in either direction for sexism so it’s hard to justify the hypocrite angle they are going for.
    So basically their message is “gun people are sexist, we hate sexists people, so therefore we hate guns.”

  45. I agree with you 100%.

    I haven’t been visiting this site much at all lately, and the ever-present boys-club atmosphere is a big part of that.

    But you know, it might be tactics – (rules for radicals #5). But I think it is a poorly applied tactic, because it pushes away some of our base.

  47. Late comment, but on the theme of all Progtards, PR mavens, and Journolistas desperately seeking something, anything, to distract attention from the implosion of FAIL underway in the US thanks to 6 years of left Progressive policy, and Dem control of the House, and still the Senate…

    “war on women” and all the related excuses that go with it, ad hominems like “misogynist” etc,
    just didnt work so well in 2012, and its not going to work now…

    Far be it for an OFWG to persuade any woman of same, tho…better you should just read what they are saying to one another, instead.
    (h/t Instapundit and Dr Helen)

    http://nypost.com/2014/08/04/scenes-from-the-feminist-implosion/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow

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