The article:
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New gun-grabbing tact
for media
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© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
Make no mistake about it: The mainstream media is this country's worst enemy on the issue of the Second Amendment. And after another recent spate of shootings -- perpetrated not by guns alone but by deranged, psychopathic losers using guns -- the spin machine has been ratcheted up to full steam.
A piece in this week's Time magazine by author Roger Rosenblatt says it all: "Get rid of the damned things!" and superficially it looks like little more than another media attempt to convince Americans that our society has outgrown the U.S. Constitution.
Rosenblatt uses some familiar socialist anti-gun themes, such as never assigning blame to the criminals and social misfits who commit heinous acts and offering only one solution, the total banning of guns. But his article is not, however, simply a rehash of tired, emotion-filled liberal dogma. It is conciliatory -- almost understanding -- of the pro-gun position. Rosenblatt even says that liberals typically ignore compelling evidence about gun ownership and the positive effect that has on crime by such notable researchers as Gary Kleck and John Lott, Jr.
That tact is a new one and it is sure to win anti-gun converts while throwing the pro-gun forces off-balance.
It isn't so much what Rosenblatt is saying as it is how he is saying it. He is attempting to use a proper mix of indignation, outrage, and calm "rational" appeal in order to make his point. He even goes out of his way not to demonize the NRA, and admonishes his mostly liberal readers not to stereotype gun owners as apes who drag their knuckles, live in the South and answer to the name, "Bubba." He even admits that most pro-gun advocates are of equal intelligence and standing with "urban liberals" -- a notion that probably made urban liberals recoil in disgust.
"Gun-control forces also ought not to make reform an implicit or explicit attack on people who like and own guns," he said. "Urban liberals ought to be especially alert to the cultural bigotry that categorizes such people as hicks, racists, psychotics and so forth. For one thing, a false moral superiority is impractical and incites a backlash among people otherwise sympathetic to sensible gun control, much like the backlash the pro-abortion rights forces incurred once their years of political suasion had ebbed. And the demonizing of gun owners or even the NRA is simply wrong. The majority of gun owners are as dutiful, responsible and sophisticated as most of their taunters."
But be advised: Rosenblatt's conciliatory approach is nothing but a trap.
In appearing to be "understanding" of the pro-gun position while exuding a coat of calm rationality, he is making it extremely difficult to argue with him. It's as if he's saying, "Look, we both know guns are legal but come on -- we ought to do the right thing and get rid of them because they're just not good for our society anymore."
Rosenblatt then quantifies his conciliation by proposing an amazing fact -- that "now, more than ever," most Americans are finally beginning to support more gun control. To demonstrate the allegedly authenticity of this claim, he uses a number of regionalized examples from different communities across the country to "prove" we have had enough of guns and the violence they cause.
"Gun-control sentiment is everywhere in the country these days -- in the White House, the presidential campaigns, the legislatures, the law courts and the gun industry itself," he wrote. "But it seems nowhere more conspicuous than in the villages, the houses of worship and the consensus of the kitchen. There comes a time in every civilization when people have had enough of a bad thing. ..."
Calm, rational, conciliatory. As every good liberal writer does, Rosenblatt has presented the problem, made an attempt to be "fair" by presenting the "opposing view," then provided an answer that cannot be readily disputed without tons of research. Plus, he makes his argument "sound" right, not irrational, and for millions of people that's enough.
In the weeks to come look for more of this kind of covert -- and overt -- anti-gun rhetoric from the mainstream media. The full-court press is on and the headlines in the newspapers seem to validate the argument that America is tired of guns and the crimes committed with them -- even if there is no proof that is true.
Granted, Americans should be concerned about all this gun violence. But the media is turning the debate over guns into a matter of national conscience, not simply a matter of the rule of law -- probably because liberals have discovered they cannot satisfactorily refute the simple meaning of our right to keep and bear arms.
Understand one thing: These people are helping Uncle Sam come after our guns. They don't understand that if we lose our ability to defend all constitutional rights, the next one to go will be freedom of speech.
God help this country then, because we all know what will happen next.
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John/az
"The middle of the road between the extremes of good and evil, is evil. When freedom is at stake, your silence is not
golden, it's
yellow..."
http://www.countdown9199.com
[This message has been edited by John/az2 (edited August 10, 1999).]
I just read the article and was going to post it here.
