Pro Gun Rights Billboard Angers (some) Native Americans

[Alabama Shooter]

Let's take a look at it:

There is some strong truth right there. The reason for the anger seems to revolve around the perception that the issues with natives were gun based (they were not of course). Gun control was just a way to try to control the population.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ed-over-pro-gun-rights-billboard-in-colorado/

Greeley resident Maureen Brucker, who has worked with Native American organizations and who frequents the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota as an honorary family member, said she thinks the billboards are making light of atrocities the federal government committed against Native Americans.

How she figures that is a mystery to me.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...n-rights-billboard-in-colorado/#ixzz2Rwry0pOL

 

[Tucker 1371]

If anything it's a reminder of the atrocities committed against Native Americans, atrocities which might have been lessened if they has been better armed.

 

[TXAZ]

You can read it a couple of ways. Historically, words like those are documented for various campaigns in the US (and other countries).

My first impression was that the US government has a verified history of lying in a serious way to Native Americans, some Civil War vets and a string of groups since.

 

[Come and take it.]

The billboard hardly makes light of the atrocities. If anything it reminds us of what the government can possibly do once we are disarmed.

Those news articles are propaganda. Why not interview the 95 percent other native Americans who agreed with the billboard so there would have been a balanced approach to the article?

 

[Alabama Shooter]

This is fascinating lesson in media bias where the editors have been using their red ink:

CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/30/us/colorado-gun-billboard/index.html

"I think it is insensitive, because even though it is what may have happened in the past, people are still living that. Relatives are still living that," Kerri Salazar, a Greeley resident and Native American, told KUSA.

"I personally do not own a gun. I don't feel the need to, but for those that do, that is their right," Salazar said.

"My hope would be is that they can just take the picture down, leave the saying. ... Believe me, I get it."

Vs. fox (and many others):

"I think we all get that (Second Amendment) message. What I don't understand is how an organization can post something like that and not think about the ripple effect that it's gonna have through the community," she said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...rd-in-colorado/?test=latestnews#ixzz2RxWJ5eB0

Those are some pretty important statements to leave on the cutting room floor.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

It's a simple connection...

The gun-grabbers think that our concern about government tyranny is paranoia. They see it as a "joke". "Are you kidding me?! Get real!"

Therefore, if we link that "paranoia" to a real, serious event, that we consider "evidence", they consider it "insensitive" because we're not being "real" and we're making light of real, serious events.

Their world-view fixation forces them to be unable to make the connection.

 

[spacemanspiff]

The question I have for those who are 'offended' by the 'insensitivity' of this billboard, would be: Do you like/dislike the following image?

To me, the 'Original Homeland Security' is much more offensive, on both sides of the coin.

The billboard in question, simply highlights the fact that the government disarmed Native Americans without having any interest in caring for them or keeping them safe from harm.

 

[shaunpain]

I believe that any Native American (honorary or otherwise) may take issue is because they feel that their heritage is being used for someone's political gain. If I were a Native American against guns, I would feel violated also. It all distracts from the very real facts of indigenous oppression and especially something as atrocious as Wounded Knee. Native Americans WERE disarmed by the US Government, their lands taken, and their populations dwindled to almost nothing. If I were a Native American and had a fellow Native American denying the oppressions and disarmament of my ancestors, I'd be kicking them out of my heritage camp.

It's like African Americans against guns that are infuriated by people like Colion Noir in light of the 400 years of slavery black people had to endure... oh wait...

 

[Dalek]

Amazing how easily the automatic setting of the offended, pops into play.

Consider every act of genocide in the past and what do they all have in common? Either a disarmed or, at best, poorly armed group having to face a well armed Govt.

Be it the Jews of Warsaw or the "Native Americans" (Honestly, I was born here too, you know), the point is painfully simple. Blind trust in the good intentions of others rarely works out well in the real world. Even less so when it comes to governments.

Those so eager to rant about being "Offended" would do well to see past their pre-programmed marching orders.

 

[lcpiper]

When people read writings, particularly from text books, about the fall of the Roman Empire, they are treated to stories of barbaric Germanic hordes raiding and pillaging Rome to an untimely end.

Of course it doesn't really happen that way, it never does. I'll tell you how it does happen. A group of people, of another culture, move in and are not assimilated by the host culture. Instead the new culture refuses to be assimilated. Instead this new culture will make some small adaptions but only enough in order to continue to gain traction and reach a point where they can actually influence change in the host culture. Some in the host culture will resist, there will be conflicts fondly remembered as the battles and struggles of the conquered and the conqueror. But the real fight isn't actually fought with swords or guns, the real fight is mostly fought in the will of who is most willing to accept and change as opposed to resist and be forgotten.

This happened in Rome, it happened, here in North America with the Native Americans, and it is happening again right now with our immigration reform issues. That is what is happening right now and either we will continue to try and force the assimilation of new immigrants into American culture or we will give up and let them change us from within. It's going to happen one way or another.

It's the same thing that happened to the Indians and every other real culture/civilization change that has ever occurred. It's just the way of the world, people need to stop wearing that stuff on their shoulders and get on with it, it's history.

 

[2ndsojourn]

@spaceman -- I could see how native Americans may be offended by the pictured post, calling them terrorists. But I could also see past the ridiculous-ness of calling them that as well.

Anyway, y'all can count on the power of the biased media to make a mountain out of a molehill to discredit any good point the pro-gun crowd comes up with.

 

[lcpiper]

I don't get it at all Spiffy. That image you posted says to me, The Indians are the Homeland Security Force not the other way around. Maybe it's got something to do with perception but I see them as the good guys in that pic.

 

[FoghornLeghorn]

Greeley resident Maureen Brucker, who has worked with Native American organizations and who frequents the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota as an honorary family member, said she thinks the billboards are making light of atrocities the federal government committed against Native Americans

Is it possible that Brucker already had her mind made up and is against the private ownership of firearms regardless?

If that's possible, is it further possible that no matter the context of a pro gun advertisement, that Brucker would still be against guns?

In my considerable experience, these people are going to make a stink no matter what the issue. If they disagree, you're not going to change their mind, and therefore aren't worth the aggravation.

But that's just me.

BTW, lack of guns is not what doomed the Native Americans.

 

[Sparks1957]

The billboard hardly makes light of the atrocities. If anything it reminds us of what the government can possibly do once we are disarmed.

I agree with this view. As someone with a considerable portion of native blood in my veins, it states a simple truth: disarming a people is the first step towards subjugating them.

 

[Beepy]

Maureen Brucker told the Greeley Tribune the billboard reminded her of the horrors of the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1890.

As it was intended to.
The point the antis are missing is that government is supposed to be the servant, not the master.
If the average American did not have such a short memory, reminding them would not be necessary.

JMHO, of course.

BP

 

[Evan Thomas]

This happened in Rome, it happened, here in North America with the Native Americans, and it is happening again right now with our immigration reform issues. That is what is happening right now and either we will continue to try and force the assimilation of new immigrants into American culture or we will give up and let them change us from within. It's going to happen one way or another.

If you're comparing the effects of the influx of immigrants on current, mainstream American culture with the destruction of Native American cultures by white immigrants to North America, I have to take exception to that. There is no congruence whatsoever between the kind of shift that occurs when separate cultures encounter each other and mingle, and, well... genocide. That is what was done to Native Americans, and it's offensive to suggest that it was merely a failure of white settlers to "assimilate" to indigenous cultures that led to the almost complete obliteration of the latter.

 

[Dr Big Bird PhD]

While I don't want to echo everyone's sentiments here like I usually do, my two roommates are native american. One's mildly pro-gun, the other is a fence-sitter.

One Navajo and the other Oneida. After work I will show them the image and post their feedback.

 

[bumnote]

The billboard hardly makes light of the atrocities.

Absolutely agree with that. I think it's one of the best pro-gun billboards I've seen...if not the best one. I also don't view it as being a strictly 'don't trust the government' message either. Indian tribes needed to protect themselves from not only the US government but also settlers, criminals...and other tribes.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

If you shop long enough, you can find a member of any group who will publicly proclaim offense about anything you wish.

I can recall a number of years ago there was an editorial in the newsletter of one of the Sioux tribal newspapers to the effect that "Sioux" is a designation that was applied to them by Europeans. They prefer to be called "Lakota," which is the name of the seven sub-tribes comprising the Lakota nation. I personally know Native Americans who don't like being called "Native Americans."

Being offended is big business today.

 

[Alabama Shooter]

The gun-grabbers think that our concern about government tyranny is paranoia. They see it as a "joke". "Are you kidding me?! Get real!"

Therefore, if we link that "paranoia" to a real, serious event, that we consider "evidence", they consider it "insensitive" because we're not being "real" and we're making light of real, serious events.

Their world-view fixation forces them to be unable to make the connection.

I totally get it now. My mind was not able to make that non-leap in logic.

BTW, lack of guns is not what doomed the Native Americans.

True, but no one could argue that disarming them made it harder to nearly annihilate them.

genocide. That is what was done to Native Americans, and it's offensive to suggest that it was merely a failure of white settlers to "assimilate" to indigenous cultures that led to the almost complete obliteration of the latter.

Exactly. The fact that we want to forget and dismiss the idea is a certain path to a repeat for someone else. Genocides are still taking place around the world in the 21st Century. To think that it can't happen here (again) is the height of denial.