Logic vs. emotion

B

bestdefense357

New member
I need some help from TFL members. I'm writing an article on this subject and would like your input. I may use some of your ideas in the final draft.

It is my strongly held belief that most people in America make their decisions based on emotion rather than logic. This is primarily because of the visual images presented by television, and to a lesser degree, movies. Instead of ranting against what is admittedly a shallow and flawed way of making important decisions, we should fight fire with fire. My question is, What are some ways we can bring an emotional presence to the pro-gun side of the argument?

While the majority of those in the national media are anti-gun, there are enough pro-gunners that we can recruit if we find the right emotional appeal. For instance, most radio talk show hosts are pro-gun--the numbers of listeners to these shows are 40-50 million. There are television producers and actors who are pro-gun. In another medium, many local newspapers are pro-gun.

How do we tap into these sources? Also, how do we get our emotional appeal to the 100 million or so who make their decisions based on what television shows them?

One suggestion is to try to change the semantics of the debate. When our side speaks on television, they should never mention the Second Amendment (most soccer moms and dads nowadays could care less). Instead, they should speak of what matters to these people. For instance, safety in their homes and their children having safe neighborhoods. In other words, make the pro-gun message an anti-crime issue.

A second suggestion would be to try to get as many victims who fought back with guns on television and radio shows. A television show of re-enactments of these stories (such as "Rescue 911") would be very popular.

There should be other ways to inject an emotional presence into our side of the argument. Let me know what you think.

Robert
 
I agree to a point--but I would suggest that you ADD emotional arguments to your logical and constitutional ones, don't eliminate the latter. We don't want to contribute to training people to ignore logic and we DON'T want people to be able to forget the 2nd Amendment.
Besides, IMHO the best you can do with emotional arguments is to manipulate people. This means not only doing a distasteful thing but playing the enemy's game on his field--doan' wanna.
That said, I think the idea where you wait out the response time of the local 911 in silence is a good one--but use that as the introduction to your real arguments, don't rely only on fear.

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Don

"Its not criminals that go into schools and shoot children"
--Ann Pearston, British Gun Control apologist and moron
 
This is a good direction.
And The comment to Add Emotion to the Logic is RIGHT ON.
You already have a BOOK. It is FULL of emotion that has yet to be tapped. How do you do that? Put Faces to the Names. Personalize it. Bring out the humanity. Like any fiction writer will tell you - you have to CARE about the charicters.
Words dont cut it in this dumbed down, sound bitten land of free of responsibility. You need Big detailed photos of these folks. And only the good looking folks. Stand in Actors will do nicely. Kids too. Tons of kids.
Make it FOR THE CHILDREN.
You can raise on outcry that way.
If your going multi media - get "The Voice" to do the talk overs on Digitally retouched home videos of these kids playing - or coming home from church or what ever you have. Get videos of the bad guys too when possible... Max out the ickyness...
You got my point.
 
I agree that we "lose" when we get into "archaic" political discussions. Fact is that most people (not TFL'ers) simply do not see the ever increasing and intrusive controlling power of the government as a threat to them. Sad, but its true...thus our 2nd A arguments about defense against a tyrannical gov't falls on deaf ears and they zone out.
From an emotional standpoint...if we hammered home personal defense...examples where an armed citizen stopped tragedy; examples of the LE/judicial system failing to protect when advised of a bad situation (orders of protection, threats) and the situation then turned bad; of the judicial system letting evil people have light terms or early release and then they go on to commit crimes again.
Basically...stress hard how helpless and at the mercy of things we can't control when we rely on the systems the gov't has in place.
If we rely on the gov't...we have allowed fate, the universal crapshoot to determine our lives.

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
All of the approaches mentioned are good - I agree with them all!

However, any single approach usually appeals only to people who are
similar to the author of that approach.

In “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”, Dr. Stephen Covey divides
people into four groups. Each group perceives, thinks about, and reacts to
facts and situations differently.

As I've noted, General Colin Powell explained that any “movement” requires many (different) voices!

Therefore (to cut to the chase), I recommend we all pick the method of
expression that is most effective for us!

Some people will require huge amounts of facts, references, and citations
that would put other folks to sleep! Others react more to an emotional
approach.

Some people will require quiet but consistent repetition that would insult
other people.

Some folks want to join a “movement” - others are loners.

On and on. We are all unique. As advocates of individualism, we must find
numerous ways to get our message across to people who are: uninformed,
ill-informed, friendly, unfriendly, interested, uninterested,
rough-and-tumble, delicate, straight-on, somewhat devious, hard-and-fast,
slow and easy, etc.

Don McNeil, host of the old radio show “The Breakfast Club”, used to take a
moment each morning to say, “Each in his own words, each in his own way,
for a free world united in peace, let us bow our heads and pray.”

Not bad advice then, not bad advice now.

We can support each other with information, data, references, and
discussing approaches; but let’s not get into a “one size fits all” frame of
mind. Let’s develop “something for everybody”.

Let’s hit ‘em on ALL fronts and (as always),

Stick it to ‘em! RKBA!
 
I really like the idea of a TV show covering true stories of (non)victims using firearms for the good. A dramatic and fast paced show (especially one like the real videos of police chases and such) would be the best way to reach the greatest number of people. The drama of it would certainly appeal to the emotional side. Just imagine a show with actual video of some convenience store owner giving some thug exactly what he deserves; who wouldn't watch that?

Jack
 
Thanks for the replies. I've seen first-hand what can happen when emotion is brought to the pro-gun side of the debate. An ABC News team took their top reporter, James Walker, to Cape Coral, FLorida to interview Sammie Foust. Many of you remember her story from my book. An intruder beat her and cut her for an hour before she was able to finally kill him with her little .25-caliber semiautomatic. As Walker and his crew saw the police photos of the battered, disfigured woman and heard her story, they cried. These people, whom I assume are liberals, told her that she did the right thing by killing him. They saw first-hand a true-life instance of the meaning of self-defense with guns, and their perspective on guns will never be the same.

Foust's segment was shown on the ABC nightly news show, bringing a sympathetic response to gun ownership.

We need more of such media stories.

Robert
 
This is a good thread. I have been asked this same question by a few firends of mine that are working on various RKBA projects. In many cases folks tend to rely too heavily on statistics, and with that is a major flaw. All statistics can be manipulated and most of the time cannot even be proved. People are bombarded by stats every day so they go in one ear and out the other. What are we left with then?

Emotion.

As several of you have stated, mentioning The 2nd to those who are uninformed or ignorant is like peeing in the wind (this is bad). But if we bring the argument down to a more personal level using reason AND emotion, then we have a connection. When I write or talk about the 2nd I keep it simple by saying that "the 2nd basically states that as living breathing human beings, we have the right to defend ourselves with a firearm - period". For beginners I do not get in to any "tyrannical government" stuff. They will learn that for themsleves if we can open the door for them.

It is very easy to point out facts to them without spewing stats. "The government and law enforcement agencies are NOT responsible for protecting the citizens" - a fact. Now let's get emotional with them. "What would you do if you were in your car, with you little 5 year old girl and a thug came up to your door with a knife or a gun and said 'scoot over, me and that little girl are going to have some fun' - quickly, what would you do? The police are 2-3 minutes away so you are responsible for your safety at this instant."

Facts combined with emotion. The emotion will force them to think personally, not politically.

CMOS

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Join GOA, NRA, LEAA and vote.
 
I am not sure if this fits into your disertation, I will share it in any evet. I have noticed in nearly all moves to ban any object that the people who make the most noise are those who will be least inconvienienced by said ban. It is okay to ban all guns if you and your friends own none, it is okay to ban skateboards if you never ride one, it is okay to ban fur coats if you will never own one or can not afford one, and so on ad nauseum.

Some ban happy fools will attempt to link themselves to the proposed banned object, i.e. President Clinton stating (falsely) that he was once an NRA life member. This is done to foster the belief that people who once stood behind the object to be banned have "seen the evils of their ways" and now support restrictions against their former interests.
 
I'm imagining an emotion-driven ad like:
---

<cell phone picture> Calling 911 can stop a violent attacker in 30 minutes.

<handgun picture> A handgun can stop him in 3 seconds.

If attacked, which tool will you reach for?
 
I'm currently reading "A Nation of Victims - The Decay of the American Character" by Charles J. Sykes. Sykes goes into great detail on how emotion and feelings have taken over from logic and reason. Great book.

ISBN 0-312-08297-5.
 
I am a student at a university, so I have lots of opportunites to argue RKBA. I avoid statistics because that just isn't my gift. I think that using emotion is perfect. I usually win arguments by telling stories from the "ayoob files" or something. BestDefense357 book is a perfect example.

I think that a tv special about armed citizens would be awesome.
 
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