Why Liberal Attacks on Gun Nuts Will Lose a Culture War
By Paul M. Barrett July 18, 2014
Watching liberal activists circle and poke at the National Rifle Association and even more extreme gun-rights groups reminds me of bear baiting. Except in this version of the spectacle, the bear wins. Two current examples from my e-mail in-box:
• Ted Nugent spews crazy, racist venom, Media Matters has learned. At this late date, what sentient American citizen doesn’t know that the over-the-hill rocker and NRA director has a screw loose? Don’t get me wrong. The man is noxious. I’ve sat in the audience at NRA pep rallies as he intersperses ear-splitting electric guitar solos with spitting-angry rants about nonexistent conspiracies to take away his Glock pistols. In one recent dispatch, Media Matters breathlessly informed me that Nugent wrote a column for the paranoiac WND website in which he discussed how “the squawking poor just keep getting poorer, and as is always the case, they have no one to blame but themselves. Stupid is as stupid does.” In another alert, Media Matters noted a Nugent column opining that President Barack Obama’s election represented “the worst case of racism I have ever witnessed in my lifetime.” Insightful stuff.
• Larry Pratt has scary ideas about firearms. Rolling Stone this week published a fascinating profile of the head of Gun Owners of America, which opposes any regulation whatsoever of firearms. The piece has been zealously embraced by activists such as Mark Kelly, husband of shooting survivor Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman. Kelly, co-founder with Giffords ofAmericans for Responsible Solutions, condemned Pratt for his assertions that widespread civilian ownership of firearms provides a check against the forces of tyranny. Pratt’s perspective becomes all the more troubling when one learns that he has written an essay, “What Does the Bible Say About Gun Control,” in which he asserted the following: “If Christ is not our King, we shall have a dictator to rule over us.” Connect the dots and Pratt seems to be insinuating that he favors overthrow of non-theocratic government.
I agree that it’s shameful that the NRA tolerates, let alone promotes, a nut like Nugent. I also agree that Pratt represents a dangerous strain of religiously based insurrectionism that runs through some fringes of American society. What I question is whether the gun-control movement should intermingle calls for modest regulatory changes—limits on ammunition magazine capacity, for example—with engagement in a broader (and ultimately futile) culture war that the likes of Nugent and Pratt relish.
An alternate approach, strangely eschewed by the gun-control movement, would frame calls for additional regulation as an element of smart anti-crime policy. Such an argument would go like this: Let’s try policy X to address the problem of crime Y. The argument would be supported by social science and testimony from law enforcement officials.
Or gun-control advocates could frame an anti-crime argument this way: Over the past quarter-century, many large cities, such as New York, have sharply reduced violent crime, including gun crime. What has changed in New York, and how can those changes be replicated in other places?
The reason that advocates on both sides of the debate prefer to hurl ad hominem invective and invoke conspiracy theories, I suspect, is that such appeals are a good way to rouse the faithful—and to raise money. Ted Nugent and Larry Pratt learned that lesson a long time ago and they stick by it.
Liberals who fight on their foes’ preferred rhetorical battleground may get some fellow-thinkers to open their checkbooks. But since pro-gun enthusiasts tend to hew to their positions with greater intensity, culture war favors the NRA and Pratt’s Gun Owners of America. Bear baiting doesn’t advance the search for policies likely to reduce street crime—or prevent the next mass shooting by a suicidal 20-year-old determined to express his rage by destroying a batch of innocents, along with himself.
By Paul M. Barrett July 18, 2014
Watching liberal activists circle and poke at the National Rifle Association and even more extreme gun-rights groups reminds me of bear baiting. Except in this version of the spectacle, the bear wins. Two current examples from my e-mail in-box:
• Ted Nugent spews crazy, racist venom, Media Matters has learned. At this late date, what sentient American citizen doesn’t know that the over-the-hill rocker and NRA director has a screw loose? Don’t get me wrong. The man is noxious. I’ve sat in the audience at NRA pep rallies as he intersperses ear-splitting electric guitar solos with spitting-angry rants about nonexistent conspiracies to take away his Glock pistols. In one recent dispatch, Media Matters breathlessly informed me that Nugent wrote a column for the paranoiac WND website in which he discussed how “the squawking poor just keep getting poorer, and as is always the case, they have no one to blame but themselves. Stupid is as stupid does.” In another alert, Media Matters noted a Nugent column opining that President Barack Obama’s election represented “the worst case of racism I have ever witnessed in my lifetime.” Insightful stuff.
• Larry Pratt has scary ideas about firearms. Rolling Stone this week published a fascinating profile of the head of Gun Owners of America, which opposes any regulation whatsoever of firearms. The piece has been zealously embraced by activists such as Mark Kelly, husband of shooting survivor Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman. Kelly, co-founder with Giffords ofAmericans for Responsible Solutions, condemned Pratt for his assertions that widespread civilian ownership of firearms provides a check against the forces of tyranny. Pratt’s perspective becomes all the more troubling when one learns that he has written an essay, “What Does the Bible Say About Gun Control,” in which he asserted the following: “If Christ is not our King, we shall have a dictator to rule over us.” Connect the dots and Pratt seems to be insinuating that he favors overthrow of non-theocratic government.
I agree that it’s shameful that the NRA tolerates, let alone promotes, a nut like Nugent. I also agree that Pratt represents a dangerous strain of religiously based insurrectionism that runs through some fringes of American society. What I question is whether the gun-control movement should intermingle calls for modest regulatory changes—limits on ammunition magazine capacity, for example—with engagement in a broader (and ultimately futile) culture war that the likes of Nugent and Pratt relish.
An alternate approach, strangely eschewed by the gun-control movement, would frame calls for additional regulation as an element of smart anti-crime policy. Such an argument would go like this: Let’s try policy X to address the problem of crime Y. The argument would be supported by social science and testimony from law enforcement officials.
Or gun-control advocates could frame an anti-crime argument this way: Over the past quarter-century, many large cities, such as New York, have sharply reduced violent crime, including gun crime. What has changed in New York, and how can those changes be replicated in other places?
The reason that advocates on both sides of the debate prefer to hurl ad hominem invective and invoke conspiracy theories, I suspect, is that such appeals are a good way to rouse the faithful—and to raise money. Ted Nugent and Larry Pratt learned that lesson a long time ago and they stick by it.
Liberals who fight on their foes’ preferred rhetorical battleground may get some fellow-thinkers to open their checkbooks. But since pro-gun enthusiasts tend to hew to their positions with greater intensity, culture war favors the NRA and Pratt’s Gun Owners of America. Bear baiting doesn’t advance the search for policies likely to reduce street crime—or prevent the next mass shooting by a suicidal 20-year-old determined to express his rage by destroying a batch of innocents, along with himself.
Left: Ted Nugent and Right: Larry Pratt
Georgia ‘guns everywhere’ law takes effect
Law allows permit holders to carry guns in churches, schools, bars, some government offices and the airport
July 1, 2014 8:52AM ET
Georgia’s new gun rules kicked in Tuesday, allowing residents to carry firearms into bars, nightclubs, classrooms and government buildings in a measure slammed by anti-weapon activists as a “dangerous kill bill.”
The law, which critics are calling the “guns everywhere” law, is considered one of the most extreme pro-gun bills in the country. Under its provisions, residents with a proper gun permit will be allowed to carry guns at a number of previously off-limits places.
The carry laws even extend to allowing people to cross Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport checkpoints with a gun.
TSA spokesman Ross Feinstein told CNN it wasn't clear how the law might affect its agents at Georgia airports, particularly Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International, the world’s busiest airport.
And despite shootings in areas of worship, religious leaders will be allowed to opt in to let people take guns into churches under the law.
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signed the Safe Carry Protection Act after the state’s Republican-controlled General Assembly overwhelmingly passed the measure on the last day of the legislative session. The law reduces the penalty against a permit holder caught with a gun on a college campus to a fine instead of a misdemeanor.
Any licensed gun owner from Georgia and visitors from 28 other states may carry a gun into bars — as long as they do not consume alcohol — and into government offices that don’t have metal detectors or security guards screening visitors. School districts may appoint staff members to carry a weapon.
For the first time, felons will be allowed to invoke the controversial “stand your ground” defense in the state. Under the defense, if people feel their life is threatened, they do not have the obligation to retreat to safety and may use deadly force.
Gun control groups, the state’s police chiefs association and restaurant association, various religious denominations and the TSA opposed the bill. So do most residents in the state. According to polls, more than 70 percent of Georgians opposed the bill.
Similar legislation has popped up in other states, including Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee, but the Georgia bill has garnered so much attention because it expands gun-carry rights in multiple areas with a single law.
It has sparked a strong response from pro-control advocates. Americans for Responsible Solutions, an organization founded by former Arizona congresswoman and shooting survivor Gabrielle Giffords, said the law “moves Georgia out of the mainstream” and lobbied against it.
“It’s a very, very dangerous kill bill,” said Lucia McBath, national spokeswoman for the organization. McBath’s 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was killed in 2012 in Jacksonville, Florida, after getting in a dispute with 47-year-old Michael Dunn over loud music.
The law has caused confusion among residents, some of whom didn’t know it had passed, and bar owners, many of whom were unsure how to keep guns out of their businesses if they didn’t want them there.
The National Rifle Association, the leading gun rights organization and a powerful political force, called the law the “most comprehensive pro-gun reform legislation introduced in recent history.”
Deal, a Republican, has supported loosening gun restrictions in the state and has an A rating from the NRA. He is seeking re-election on Nov. 4.
Al Jazeera
Law allows permit holders to carry guns in churches, schools, bars, some government offices and the airport
July 1, 2014 8:52AM ET
Georgia’s new gun rules kicked in Tuesday, allowing residents to carry firearms into bars, nightclubs, classrooms and government buildings in a measure slammed by anti-weapon activists as a “dangerous kill bill.”
The law, which critics are calling the “guns everywhere” law, is considered one of the most extreme pro-gun bills in the country. Under its provisions, residents with a proper gun permit will be allowed to carry guns at a number of previously off-limits places.
The carry laws even extend to allowing people to cross Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport checkpoints with a gun.
TSA spokesman Ross Feinstein told CNN it wasn't clear how the law might affect its agents at Georgia airports, particularly Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International, the world’s busiest airport.
And despite shootings in areas of worship, religious leaders will be allowed to opt in to let people take guns into churches under the law.
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signed the Safe Carry Protection Act after the state’s Republican-controlled General Assembly overwhelmingly passed the measure on the last day of the legislative session. The law reduces the penalty against a permit holder caught with a gun on a college campus to a fine instead of a misdemeanor.
Any licensed gun owner from Georgia and visitors from 28 other states may carry a gun into bars — as long as they do not consume alcohol — and into government offices that don’t have metal detectors or security guards screening visitors. School districts may appoint staff members to carry a weapon.
For the first time, felons will be allowed to invoke the controversial “stand your ground” defense in the state. Under the defense, if people feel their life is threatened, they do not have the obligation to retreat to safety and may use deadly force.
Gun control groups, the state’s police chiefs association and restaurant association, various religious denominations and the TSA opposed the bill. So do most residents in the state. According to polls, more than 70 percent of Georgians opposed the bill.
Similar legislation has popped up in other states, including Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee, but the Georgia bill has garnered so much attention because it expands gun-carry rights in multiple areas with a single law.
It has sparked a strong response from pro-control advocates. Americans for Responsible Solutions, an organization founded by former Arizona congresswoman and shooting survivor Gabrielle Giffords, said the law “moves Georgia out of the mainstream” and lobbied against it.
“It’s a very, very dangerous kill bill,” said Lucia McBath, national spokeswoman for the organization. McBath’s 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was killed in 2012 in Jacksonville, Florida, after getting in a dispute with 47-year-old Michael Dunn over loud music.
The law has caused confusion among residents, some of whom didn’t know it had passed, and bar owners, many of whom were unsure how to keep guns out of their businesses if they didn’t want them there.
The National Rifle Association, the leading gun rights organization and a powerful political force, called the law the “most comprehensive pro-gun reform legislation introduced in recent history.”
Deal, a Republican, has supported loosening gun restrictions in the state and has an A rating from the NRA. He is seeking re-election on Nov. 4.
Al Jazeera