**Am I missing something, or is there no longer a way to make quote trees manually?**
"What's the message? Is it a message that is "newsworthy"?
Media outlets report events, not philosophies. "Guns are good" is not a new and controversial idea, it is an old and oft repeated statement. There is nothing to report about that."
And I suppose the Ab-Abber 2000 System is worthy of coverage? I'm talking paid distribution here, not fawning media coverage. There's a reason you NEVER see adds for firearms on TV, radio, or bill boards anywhere but out in the country, and it is not because they aren't selling in the urban markets. Time Warner, NBC Universal, and all the other big names have a stated RULE that they will not sell advertising that glorifies guns, sex, rock & roll, and whatever other Catholic-censorship-era standards are still kicking around the boardrooms (they're as strict as they've been since Leave it to Beaver and John Wayne, it's just the rules have changed)
"If you want to be in media, you have to generate interest by linking to topical events or creating controversy."
Uh-huh. Gun control seems to get plenty of coverage, but very little for gun rights, despite being direct complements to each others' controversy for the exact same events. Fail.
"Our side does not have anything new to say."
PLEASE stop saying "our" as you have any idea what we're about. You demonstrate either a profound ignorance, misunderstanding, or outright misrepresentation of the pro-gun position in practically every post anymore.
"However, if LaPierre were (for instance) to show up a BLM rally for Philando Castile, because he is concerned that the policeman killed Castile out of irrational fear of Castile's CCW, then that would get on the TV."
Yup, same as if he came out and endorsed Hillary and gun control, I bet he'd get more instant coverage, fame, and adoration than you'd ever believe. Don't see that as a winning strategy for us, as opposed to him, though. An off-topic tangent, but wasn't Castile the guy with the felony-prior and allegedly stolen gun in his lap when the cop rolled up (not as direct justification for lethal force, but as strong supporting arguments for the yet-unproven claim he did further stupid actions in the presence of the officer that DID warrant a lethal response)
"Thus, Marks and Engels wrote about about "communism", and the Soviets were "Communists"."
""Oh God, you're not one of those people who thinks Communism simply hasn't been done "correctly" yet, are you?""
"""No. I was just using that example because it is fairly well known."""
Okay, that's a piece of good news, at least. BTW, the Soviets never claimed to be practicing communism, that's why there called 'soviets' --they were socialists. Even from the very start they knew communism was a ridiculous fantasy, which is why they perpetuated the propaganda notion from Marx that the current horrors of socialism were but a temporary transition to the peaceful, decentralized utopia of communism. That's the only reason the Russians made use of the term 'communist' at all. Naturally, not even Marx ever bothered to explain why the totalitarian Soviet regime controlling the economy would dissolve itself into a bunch of hippie communes, or even how that could work without a regression to tribal pre-civiliazation.
"Articles about gun control are generally in response to EVENTS of gun violence. Occasionally, there are articles of gun support after EVENTS of gun usefulness, but those events are few and far between compared to the opposite."
Uh-huh. Even the most conservative estimates, put out by anti-gun researchers no less, put the number of defensive gun uses at like ten times the number of human shootings for any reason. The most liberal but still substantiated estimate was some 1.5 million back when Lott go into the gun research game years ago. It's adorable how you framed this in terms of 'gun violence' vs. 'gun usefulness,' as though a gang-banger shooting a mother of five deserves anti-gun coverage, whereas a mother of five shooting dead an attacking gangbanger is... still deserving of anti-gun coverage. Even though the mother's access to defensive means being restricted/denied is a fairly important issue in either case.
Just what do you feel is 'gun usefulness,' anyway? Hunting? At any rate, regardless of the details of the 'gun' story, why is it that you pretty much only see the anti-gun theories, explanations, and policy solutions parroted day-in-day-out after a shooting, even though pro-gun representatives not only have their own set of competing ideas to broadcast, but also the same motivations to improve public safety (in fact, the only demonstrable difference in aims is --you guessed it-- the elimination of civilian gun rights)
TCB
