Faced with a generation of defeat in the gun control debate, the Left is increasingly turning to one of its favorite weapons in the culture war, stigma. It’s mobilizing its tribe — including progressive corporations, Hollywood, and the mainstream media — to not just make policy arguments but also to shame and insult Americans who disagree. The goal is to make gun ownership culturally toxic.

“Faced with a generation of defeat in the gun debate, the Left is increasingly turning to one of its favorite weapons in the culture war, stigma. It’s mobilizing its tribe — including progressive corporations, Hollywood, and the mainstream media — to not just make policy arguments but also to shame and insult Americans who disagree. The goal is to make gun ownership culturally toxic.” – David French in Why the Left Won’t Win the Gun-Control Debate [via nationalreview.com]

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75 COMMENTS

  1. We may lose the battles, but the war is FAR from certain for these prog idiots. The fact is more people are waking up to the fact these SJWs are insane.

    • Stigmatizing people who just don’t believe in the second amendment;). It’s not like it is human nature to stigmatize people who don’t agree with you.

    • More people are waking up, but worry not. The dems and big business republicans are flooding the U.S. with 3rd world era who embrace Marxism and will bring us a bit of Venezuela.

      • +

        They’ll try, and we’ll hang one in their asses. But I agree, there are liberal (D) and POS rino sh_tbags in our gov’t that have to go. They are doing the UN’s UNODA disarmament bidding [using your tax dollars to disarm you to protect foreign nations and nationals from your and to do global communism] https://www.un.org/disarmament/

        It’s all part of the UN’s continuing “Sustainability Agenda” If you see or hear the word “sustainable” in a conversation about the world, its people or resources, that’s GLOBAL COMMUNISM https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf

        Look at International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) Regs. If you load 1 round of ammo for sale you have to register with the U.S. State Dept. ($2,300 / yr) so they can protect foreign nationals from you. If you modify your reloading equipment to do so, you need to register.

  2. The left is highly organized. The right has virtually nothing. For example, the left brought thousands of demonstrators to Tallahassee over the past couple of weeks. Of course most were paid astro-turfers. The gun guys showed up with a crowd of 100 – 200. The lefties are just waiting for the next mass shooting.

    • Honestly that is a load of crap. Take a look at IGOLD pictures some time. The fact is that they are in outrage mode. Outrage mode gets things done.

        • You can really organize a crowd when Oprah donates $500,000 and gets her friends to donate also (do you really think that money went directly to a bunch of high school students?) to pay for buses and hotels for kids (and their handlers) to go to the Florida capitol and D.C. to protest. Do I sense the hand of Mikey Bloomberg behind all this? Or am I just another conspiracy theorist?

        • Plus, when pro RTKBA rallies draw big crowds, the media doesn’t take pictures (if they cover the rally at all; I’ve been at two decently large events that didn’t even get local coverage, whereas a tiny MDA-Bloomberg event around the same time was all over the news). Conversely, at civilian disarmament rallies, the press will take close-ups to make crowds look bigger. So, there’s also a very real layer of distortion applied by the media as well.

      • In Illinois they got more than 3000 on a few hours notice protesting gun grabbing. It is generally NOT reporting by the ledtard media. We ARE organized…

        • . . .and, we don’t really care what we lose, as long as they lose a lot more.

          If we die, it won’t be quietly or alone.

          Who knows, could be fun.

          /sarc, except that’s the sh_t they’re selling their guys on.

    • > The left is highly organized. The right has virtually nothing.

      “Also, people don’t want to remember how much leftist violence was actively supported by mainstream leftist infrastructure. I’ll say this much for righty terrorist Eric Rudolph: the sonofabitch was caught dumpster-diving in a rare break from hiding in the woods. During his fugitive days, Weatherman’s Bill Ayers was on a nice houseboat paid for by radical lawyers.” – davidzhines

    • > The left is highly organized. The right has virtually nothing…..
      > The lefties are just waiting for the next mass shooting.

      Whenever there’s a mass shooting, the anti-2A forces already have their talking points prepared and legislation written. The 2A forces are always caught like a deer in the headlights.

      For a group of people that likes to use tactical phrases like “OODA loop”, or whatever, the anti-2A forces consistently run circles inside our OODA loop.

      • “…their talking points prepared and legislation written.”

        Perhaps more accurately, they tend to drag out the same material every time.

  3. The left won’t change me. All this crap with no facts just talking points is only angering me more. To the point where I intend to only get more involved locally. It’s time to take off the gloves and try to beat some sense into these leftist retards.

    • Right? Each time one of them opens their mouth what comes is inevitably wrong, ignorant, angry and vitriolic. If anything they’re showing themselves not to simply be good-intentioned naive softies but hostile and hate filled threats to logic, reason and civilization. Never in a million years would I have thought the desire to spare hurt feelings would result in letting lunatics run the asylum.

    • Jay….. I thought about going to one of these nut case rallies wearing one of my favorite T shirts that says ; ” 9 out of the 10 voices in my head told me to stay home today and clean my guns “.

  4. Yeah, but culture is not so tractible as that. You can demonize something up to a point, after that it becomes cool. This is so even if there’s a rational reason to demonize, but especially if there’s not.

    I bet many of us know a relatively new shooter who likes the contrariness of it. Or were that shooter ourselves. Not talking about playing badass, but rather the fact that they took up shooting and nothing else changed, that they didn’t become Travis Bickle. Didn’t get crap from anti-gun freinds because not everyone needs to know.

    • I dunno, actually getting laws passed against recreational drugs truly did generations worth of damage to hippie culture as well as the rule of law & justice in general. For sure, ‘culture war’ victories tend to come with a lot of unintended consequences, usually stemming from the inherent stupidity or illogic of the conflict.

      • To the extent laws are passed, the ground gained in a culture war is consolidated. That is a loss, the opposotion cashing in untenable gains for tenable ones. That’s part of why we can’t even give up bump stocks, it stops the clock and puts the antis back to first-down, to use a football analogy.

  6. Something tells me that pursuing a ‘shaming’ campaign against an opponent that just elected Donald Trump to president isn’t going to work out the way they planned.

    Regardless whether we agree or disagree with all his policies, I think everyone can agree the man is not motivated by ‘negative emotions’ like shame or fear (resulting in both good and bad outcomes, I would say). That quality, more than any specific stance(s) on policy is what got him elected, and if that quality extends even a little bit to his base, this full-on culture war assault will backfire bigly on the urban liberal types.

  7. So…. people that are too big of a WIMP to overcome their petty fear of guns to protect children are trying to stigmatize those of us who are ready, willing and able to rise to the challenge? That’s just rich.

  8. I’m worried about outside influence. Forget about Russia, it’s the entirety of global opinion.

    My perception is that the 2008 elections were swayed, simply through a mass influx of social media from across the pond. I’m not condemning it, just making a personal observation.

    Critical thinking is not in vogue, emotion is carrying the day.

    There are just too many logical reasons to embrace the Second Amendment and gun ownership.

    We’ve become too lazy, expecting a benevolent, omniscient government to protect us. Fools.

    • We’ve become too lazy, expecting a benevolent, omniscient NRA & REPUBLICANS to protect us. Fools.

      Fixed it for ya

      • Let’s examine our statements, and extrapolate some reasonable conclusions.
        I made two general assertions – international influence and complacency of the American public.

        I was forthright, not hiding behind a pseudonym.

        You made an emotional statement, not using your real name.

        I contend (extrapolate) that I am a law-abiding gun owner.

        I also assert (extrapolate) you are one of the complacent, lazy fools I described in my first contribution.
        As a point of fact, you’ve demonstrated you’re also an anonymous coward.

  9. According to the caption over at National Review the woman in the center is 18. It seems she’s got her wish as the state of Florida just passed a law stripping her of her constitutional rights until she’s 21. Way to go.

    • Isn’t it weird? Students have always been first to raise against the establishment. Usually they fight for more freedom, not to get it taken from them though.

      I participated in manifestations against communist regime in my day. (1989 seems so far in the past now)
      We yelled ‘Free elections!’ and ‘End the rule of single Party!’, not ‘Less freedom, it’s scarry!’
      I just can’t imagine myself calling for government to strip my rights away. Holders brainwashing seems to work on today’s yoots.

      • Yoots are always stupid. Let’s just hope they learn along the way like we did.

  10. If only we could create our own media campaign, to remind people of the political hacks that contributed to this mess in Florida – the ones that traded children’s lives for ‘thirty pieces of silver’ – lax crime enforcement in exchange for Federal funds. The same ones now trading our rights for mob rule!
    And maybe, a catchy phrase to describe the local sheriff department’s recent performance during this tragedy.
    “Broward’s Cowards’ has a nice ring to it!

    DrDKW

  11. “Shame and insult” – you misspelled “marginalize and outgroup.”

    First you shut them up: drive them out of politics. Then they are un-persons: it doesn’t matter what you do to them. Finally, they are pollutants: it’s a virtue, maybe a necessity to remove them.

    8n the end, it’s all positioning for that final solution.

    This has all happened before…

    • It’s happening right now in South Africa. The whole shebang. Discrimination, disenfranchisement, disarmament, dispossession, and finally cleansing. Bitter LOL

  12. Proudly wearing the badge of DEPLORABLE.
    I just don’t see the problem. Those who scream the loudest are the ones who say the least.
    But what the heck, let them win. A little revolution now and again is a good thing.

  13. There’s no mystery or conspiracy to what’s happening. They can’t come after guns outright so the indoctrinate each new generation. Every generation gets softer and stupider. Now combine this with the death by a million papercuts legislation here and there. In another 25-50 years the US will basically be Europe…

    • Millennials are soft self entitled poseurs like the majority of Boomers who sired them.

      Gen X and Generation Zyclon will do their best to clean up the mess.

      • Millennials also support gun rights and are against gun control by a much wider margin than any other age group. The margin is quite wide when they’re compared to the 55+ age group…

        • Another quibble, as a gen Xer myself, gen X isn’t uniformly for individual liberty. We were not indoctrinated as blatantly as subsequent generations (for example, while we were stewed in Marxist ideas in school and in universities, at that time far fewer teachers/profs would openly advocate socialism), but our indoctrination may be even worse in some ways for having been more subtle.

      • “Baby Boomers” oh, how I absolutely despise that term. I am 61, my wife 60. We weren’t even considered “Baby Boomers”, until some time ago, when AARP, et al decided that they needed larger numbers of warm bodies for their political agendas, so they increased the spread of birth years to include the late 50’s for the so-called “Baby Boom” years. Other than being nothing more than warm bodies for their political agendas, we are treated as red-haired step-children by those organisations.
        We are politically conservative, pro 2A, as are our children. AND, our grandchildren are being brought up the same way. NO snowflakes, NO PC.
        All family members are comfortable around firearms, know firearm safety, and know how to shoot. Children are taught to shoot at the appropriate age.

  14. Eric Holder – “What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that’s not cool, that it’s not acceptable, it’s not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we changed our attitudes about cigarettes…we have to be repetitive about this. It’s not enough to have a catchy ad on a Monday and then only do it Monday. We need to do this every day of the week, and just really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.”

  15. Always tell them they had their gun free zones.. They set this shit up from the beginning and now they blame us to take guns… Fuck them!!! Fuck the cops and the feds. Because they knew exactly what they were doing. They set this up via active monitoring with their socialist think tanks. These Democrat socialist turds are not constitutional citizens. They are our fucking enemies. They are the new Bolshevik idiots and we have to McCarthy the fuck out of them.. Harass them for the un American cowards they are. These are the same pieces of shit in antifa/blm masks.. Same message of twisted alinsky lies… Its time everyone.. Troll their anti gun bullshit on their websites, email their bosses in social media and legacy media. check what security services the politicians, actors hire and get a list then publically force gun manufacturers to stop selling guns to their security details, cops, government.. And whatever gun manufacturer doesn’t stop selling to them, boycott the gun manufacturer… Expose the gun manufacturer in public for selling to socialists, communists, anti gun politicians.. Time to fight dirty and kick these assholes in the nuts!! Also most important!!! We need hacking groups to hack their phones and computers to expose the hoaxes.. Then release it all to wikileaks and social media.. And if anyone embellishes a bit who cares! Its a disinformation campaign to defend our rights.. We have to make these pieces of crap look so bad they stfu about being un American… Troll these assholes by any means necessary!!!!

  16. Quite often, firearms owners are their own worst enemies. The duck hunters don’t like the AR-15 “black rifles” so they see no problem if attempts are made to ban them. The traditional rifle owners don’t like machine guns, so they have no problem with them being legislated out of existence. Some pistol owners see nothing wrong with certain long guns being outlawed just as some rifle owners would have no problem seeing pistols banned.
    Friends, ALL firearms advocates must “hang together” and realize that an assault on ANY means of firearms ownership and self-defense is an assault on ALL forms of firearms ownership and self-defense.
    There is absolutely NO ROOM for complacency among ANY Second Amendment supporters. An attack on one is an attack on ALL…
    ALL firearms laws are unconstitutional on their face. Imagine the hue and cry if “reasonable” restrictions were placed on First Amendment activities, especially with the “mainstream media”. The Second Amendment is clear–what part of “shall not be infringed” do politicians and the media not understand…of course, they understand full well…it’s part of their communist agenda…

    • Benjamin Franklin reportedly said just before the start of the American Revolution “Gentlemen, we must hang together or most assuredly we will hang separately.”

      There are deep divisions within the shooting community. There is alot of us-vs-them. The SSAA in the 1990s decided it was politically expedient to sell out owners of self loading rifles. There was big drop in membership renewals for many years afterwards. The full-bore target shooters in the NSWRA think if service rifle shooters are “sacrificed” the anti-gun groups will leave them alone. We must unify or we make our enemy’s job to divide and conquer alot easier.

  17. Another issue is We POTG don’t organize, We lose rights like in FL, CA, IL we run tho the forums and yell and complain in this echo chamber. How about we fight fire with fire.
    USE social media, amass rallies, energize the base! We need to balkanize (sic) POTG from celebrities, atheletes (sic), politicans(sic) All the pro gun 2a supporters we can.
    Throw the saul alinsky rules back in their faces.

  19. The marginalized groups in the Right have to get to together and organize. This might be preaching to the choir but joining a pro-2nd amendment organization is good first step. Try to support a group that is going on the offensive. We want lawsuits. Politicians passing laws or repealing laws to punish the Left. Look for organizations that have a grass roots ground game. The mainstream Right is so milquetoast that all the energy is in the dissident Right who are running around posting “It’s ok to be white” flyers on wing and a prayer budgets. It does not have to be this way. Why not spend some of that 2nd amendment lobbyist war chest on the guys looking for a cause to post “it’s ok to protect yourself with a gun” on college campuses and yank the media spotlight back?

  20. “The goal is to make gun ownership culturally toxic.”

    Good luck with that, Leftists.

    First you’re gonna have to get Hollywood onboard with your plan. That’s gonna be tough as long as action-adventure, drama, and horror flicks *glamorize* guns as the way to solve problems, save the girl, and look cool…

    • I’ll tell you RTFN, that U.S. Service men and women made guns “cool” even for the kids in Iraq. When your skinny dad is dressed in ma’s pajamas all day, the comparatively hulking dudes in camo and body-armor were like walking action figures.

  21. Take heart, fellow gun folk. All the anti-gunners have to offer is bitter kool-aid. Yes, there is a culture war going on. There has always been a culture war going on and there always will be. We lost yesterday in Florida. It stings. 25 years ago there were effectively zero CHL holders in Florida. Now there are what, over a million of them? We are still winning.

    Yes, there is more work to be done. There will be more battles, and more losses. So we stay vigilant and fight the good fight. And damned if it isn’t the same fight for individual liberty Americans have been fighting since Lexington and Concord. Shall not be infringed is still not the law of the land, but we are winning, though there is a long way to go.

    What the progressives don’t understand is that it is impossible to stigmatize people who simply do not care what they say, and that is most Americans. Yes, there is risk that their sound and fury will sway some of the uninformed, so we fight them with facts.

    We fight back with emotion, as well, ceaseless pointing out the cowardice behind all progressives. The cowardice of no personal responsibility, of state protection, of other people putting their lives on the line for the “masses”, who bear no share of that responsibility. It is cowardice, and we must constantly call them out for being cowards.

    And while we make ourselves immune to the slanders from the anti-gunners, they cannot do the same in the face of their own cowardice, because they know they are cowards. Deep down, in the scary dark places, they know it, and it shames them. They are ripe for the ridicule, for the scorn. They are also asshats, but hey, people gotta be who they are, I guess.

    They want to go to war against guns the way they did against tobacco. Let them. Their weakness is that they see no social utility for firearms, except of course those within state control. A good cigar can be pleasurable. Too many can kill you, of course. On the other hand, a good gun – and the skill and willingness to use it – can save your life. It’s a difference most non-progressives can understand.

    This is actually a golden opportunity. The more they rail against guns, the more the people in the middle get curious. Answer peoples’ questions. Take someone to a range and share what you know. Keep buying guns and ammo and expend it to increase your skills, and for damn certain enjoy the act. Guns are fun, too, and no screeching harpy can change that.

    We stay vigilant. And we laugh at them, which really, really pisses them off. And we remember that at the end of the day, we’re still the ones with all the guns.

    • Shall not be infringed IS the law of the land. It is in the supreme law – the Constitution.
      Unfortunately, it is mostly ignored or twisted into unrecognizable pretzels.

  22. It is understandable that the public has come to its senses on the threat from gun owners, but a more practical approach would be to buy back and confiscate certain types of guns, particularly semi-automatic firearms such as the AK and the Glock.

    I think we all knew that semi-automatic assault rifles would become confiscated at some point anyhow because these weapons were designed solely for military use. A good compromise would be to retrofit all semi-autos with bullet buttons and limit their capacity to five rounds, like hunting rifles. In the long run, I think that would work out for the best.

    • Brilliant and when jackboots want to rape a relative or beat the shit out of someone’s son during a home raid I’ll just fuck with a bullet button while they unleash 30 rounds plus in my direction.. Fuck no!!! Confiscation means nationwide revolt!!!!!!! That is when we all strike back…

    • The mostly unarmed “public” you refer to, along with any military or police that engage us will be on the wrong (losing) side of the Revolution that will be caused if anything you mention is actually attempted by Government. The British tried that in 1775 and were defeated by the ancestors of the POTG.

    • I think you are mistaken. Almost all guns were originally designed for military use. Semi automatic firearms are the most prevalent guns in today’s USA. If you take them from law abiding citizens (criminals will not give up their guns, of course) you will not achieve anything positive.
      And you may start some very ugly events if you try. Beware!

  24. I keep seeing this crap everywhere… oh we have to save gun rights (Yes we do) oh we have to primary these damn RINOS (totally on board) we gotta beat this libtard in the elections (Yep still on target). Fact of the matter is though we’re going about it the wrong way. Libs and Rinos, well any politician really, do the things they do because it gets them what they want. VOTES & MONEY! Libs went full SJW because they found that the further left they went, the more freebies they gave away, and the more “woke” they got the more votes and the more donations they got. Rinos likewise found the more they compromised with those SJW fruit loops the easier the press went on them and thus (they’re probably wrong) their voting block grew as did the contributions to their campaigns.

    Yes court cases and voting in more NRA A+ rated politicians helps expand our 2A freedoms and reclaim some losses, but they don’t really help us win the war because we are still relying on the lowest form of life known to man, your average politician. If the press and those astroturf protests can put enough pressure on any politician and make them believe that if they don’t pass X then they will not get the votes required to win election Y said politician WILL gladly sellout and do whatever it is they’re being asked to do NRA rating be damned. For us to win a lasting victory we have got to start using their own tactics against them and we have to start throwing napalm on the astroturf. We have to start engaging the younger demographics better as well. True we are much better than we used to be but we still haven’t found a true pop culture icon. Colion’s awesome for this but it doesn’t matter when the most used NRA spokesperson is friggin Wayne LaPierre and Dana. I will admit I love love LOVE watching her put the boots to a gun grabber in open debate but that’s not winning any converts instead it just deepens their resistance to the NRA message. We need to put Colion and a more friendly (for lack of a better word) faces out front. Logic isn’t going to win this phase of the war we have to start making emotion and identity part of the equation we have to start showing these kids how guns can fit into their lifestyle and no I don’t mean trotting out the old raped and beaten outside a club trope I mean showing them 3 gun, IPSC, IDPA, and all the other forms shooting sports take on. Show them that you meet the nicest people on a Honda err gun range. Get these kids to realize that the “social justice” their fighting for isn’t true justice.

  25. The Left controls the mainstream media and, thereby, the message. We gun owners are the Juden of contemporary America, and being treated as were the Jews of NAZI Germany. We need to swell the Memberships of National and State Pro-gun Organizations, fuel them with money, and demand that they fight tooth and nail to preserve everyone’s Second Amendment protected right to keep and bear Arms. We need to flood POTUS and COTUS with letters, e-mails and phone calls because it is the only way to make our voices heard. Don’t give a penny to any Political Party or Politician who does not fully support the Constitution and the values you hold.

    I seriously doubt that will happen and everyone’s Second Amendment protected RKBA will die with a whimper because too may of us did nothing. It is a “culture war” and the opposition wants nothing less than the dissolution of the American Constitutional Republic and all its ideals, values and traditions.

    We, our Parents and Grand-Parents stood by over the past 70+ years (actually longer) and allowed the Marxist/Socialist/Progressives to take over our Education System, Bureaucracy, Press and other Political and Social Institutions all the while saying, “Oh, THAT won’t happen in America.”, but it has and now we are at the tipping point. Time to take a lesson from Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and turn the table on the Left, or submit and embrace the Socialist, Globalist Dystopia they want to impose on us. It may not be too late, but short of a bloody and terrible second Civil War, I don’t see any other viable choice.

    • But it is amazing how much progressives fear the might of the gun lobby even with the power of the media, entertainment, and tech industries behind them.

      • Yes! We need to use that resource to make them fear the Gun Lobby all the more. By recruiting more gun owners to actively support the Gun Lobby and communicate our support to Politicians directly, we can make ourselves heard because we will get no support, or fair treatment from the News Media.

    • Which has nothing to do with my main point. I neither know, nor care, WHO you are or who you THINK you are.

  26. My first TTAG post ~ 5 years ago? (I don’t remember) said what a evil bunch of deleterious MFs the POS (D) are.

    I’ve tried to include a little of that positive message in all of my posts on TTAG, and in daily conversations with acquaintances, calling in to radio talk shows, etc.

    Most people reacted as though they were surprised or outright told me I was wrong, but I wasn’t.

  27. Shits going to hit the fan, call me spik and span, time to hit em and EE di di and hit em again. GDamn global economy, world order fuckin communist, eat shit puke and die. I’m getting pretty worked up over our traitorous government, and it’s not just guns.

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