Like it or not, emotions move people more than logic does. We can know something intellectually, but feelings can override that, and then we need to deal with the ramifications of that.
What gets me is when anti-gunners get angry about anyone on our side talking about terrible scenarios to make a point.
It seems they don't like the competition for their fearmongering.
And sometimes, they say such stupid things in newspaper columns that we can all point and laugh at, like this one.
The ad, doing the rounds on social media, is chilling.
A woman is tending to a baby in a crib when she hears an intruder entering her house. She puts a chair up against the nursery door and calls 911. They can’t get there for three minutes. She grabs her baby, finds a pair of scissors, waits in terror as the attacker gets closer.
“NO ON 9” flashes up on the screen.
Question 9 is a measure on November’s ballot that would repeal 2024 gun-safety legislation that strengthened the state’s red flag law, tightened licensing requirements, and required better tracking of ghost guns, among other changes. On their website, those who want to repeal the law say the measures make it too hard to exercise their Second Amendment rights, and that the red flag requirements “turn law-abiding citizens into criminals overnight,”
Back to the nursery.
The dispatcher is still on the line. Ma’am, are you still there?
There has been a struggle. The phone is on the floor. A man’s feet step over it.
“When seconds count, the police are minutes away. Vote no on ballot Question 9,” the voice-over says. “Your safety depends on it.”
It’s scary stuff. It’s also over-the-top. But whipping up fear, especially among women, is nothing new for the gun industry — or the Second Amendment absolutists who goose their profits by convincing gun owners that their rights are under attack, thereby also convincing them that they must absolutely buy more guns.
Here’s how their argument goes: If that terrified woman in the ad owned a gun, and had it close by when she was putting her baby to sleep, she could have used it to stop the intruder. Presumably, the only way to be truly safe, even in your own home, is to be strapped at all times.
To be fair, taking issue with using fear as a motivator on a political issue is fair. I get kind of sick of that a lot of the time myself.
However, let's also understand that when columnist Yvonne Abraham says this, she's only worried about one side of the coin using that fear. I can't find where she's ever called out anti-gun academics for pumping up the youth gun death statistics by including legal adults in the mix, or the teachers' unions screaming about how they're afraid to go to work, despite the fact that sexual misconduct by educators is a bigger issue they care nothing about.
In other words, fear sells for anti-gunners, and what Abraham is really upset about is that whoever is behind these ads is muscling in on the anti-gun territory.
She cites studies saying that everything is better without guns, while never recognizing the truth behind those studies. They're all terrible, and any that find something the anti-gunners don't like open up the researcher to attacks.
But at the end of the day, no matter what Abraham tries to say, she's just mad that anti-gun tactics are open to both sides, and the pro-gun side is using them for once.
Anyone with half a brain can see it. Admittedly, that also exempts most anti-gunners from the group that can, but alas, did anyone think they'd admit it if they did see it?
I didn't think so.
