Advertising on the DC Metro?

[Norton]

I was listening to the radio last night driving home around the beltway and the topic of discussion was a judge who had decided that the DC Metro system would have to accept advertising from a group advocating the legalization of pot.

This, coupled with the billboard discussion thead got me to thinking, as I sometimes do.

A caller to the radio show must have been reading my mind.....his position was the while the judge said that the pot legalization ad must be accepted, this same judge would be the first one to say that an ad from Smith and Wesson would be prohibited.

So...if this judge has said that pot ads are OK.....could the NRA not advertise with "postition ads" on the DC metro?

Anyone know how much it costs? I'm sure it's in the 10s of thousands......

Imagine riding the Metro with ads that say "The 2nd ammendment.....America's original homeland defense"

 

[Leatherneck]

Why Norton, what are you, some kind of troublemaker? Don't you realize that in these here environs, pot has a positive social value, while guns are evil and disgusting?

TC
TFL Survivor

 

[mtnbkr]

I'm all for the pot ads, and I'd support 2nd Amendment ads. Chris Core (I'm assuming that's the program you were listening to) had his head up his tail on this issue. I only caught the first 20 minutes or so, he may have changed his mind after a while...

Chris

 

[dev_null]

If I saw NORML ads on the Metro, I'd cheer, and not because I smoke. Seems to me McWilliams' "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do: On the Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Country" ought to be required reading.

Anyway, I think it's a great idea, but I also think that -- due to the bad rap/bogeyman image blissninnies have of the NRA, thanks to the Brady Bunch -- it'd be even more effective if sponsored by 2AF, JPFO, GOA, or some other org. (No, I can't afford to do it myself, and besides I think if it were just one person it would be ignored as being presented by some "nutcase.")

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[dischord]

Does anyone on Metro look up enough to notice the ads?

 

[jfh]

I'M ALL FOR IT--ADS OF ANY TYPE

on the Metro, on Buses, etc.

Norton's original proposal is about 99% there, IMHO.

Remember the big discussion we had a few months ago about a THR 'activist' role? This is the kind of thing we could all rally around--

OLEG: Do a poster in the manner of Metro / Bus ad--e.g., longer and with horizontal layout.

I'm not up on the current discussion about political and business 'free speech.' Who knows the status of that? E.g., I can imagine that if NYC or DC doesn't have a law against it, they'd convene the appropriate powers-that-be in the middle of the night during the rainstorm/snowstorm of the Century to pass a bill abolishing it...which could be tested in court and found unconstitutional?

Wouldn't it? Fill me in--and let's get some posters going on the buses and trains. Targeted to the East Coast--easy to do.

 

[dev_null]

I still like the idea of letters to the editor at WashPost ("the Pravda on the Potomac," as one Rolling Thunder organizer called it), thanking DC for their stance on guns and the resulting predator safari park there, thereby reducing scum moving to VA.

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[Norton]

I'd prefer this not get into a discussion on legalization of pot. Whatever your stance on the issue, we could use this to our advantage.

To answer JFH's question about the legal aspects of this......what happened was that the Metro folks rejected the initial pot ad. The pot advocates filed a suit and then someone (congress or DC council) passed a law. Pot advocates got it overturned....judge said that Metro had to accept ads from anyone who can pay for them.

So....if that's the case, does anyone have any contacts at GOA, JPFO, or NRA to see if this could happen?

 

[jfh]

OK, the legal side is solved....

but before we go to potential buyer groups. I say we shape up the campaign a bit.

My money says the NRA wants to tout NRA-style Patriotism; think what their current ads are like--we want the "public relations" type of promotion for this stuff--i.e., like Norton's line, with Oleg's graphics--a simple tag line like "this message brought to you by the Jews for the Preservatin of Firearms Ownership."

The first one has to be subtle and understated, and it should run for months...we gotta get those EC elites used to this concept....

So, in sum, I think we need to develop the package a bit more first.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I wonder what percentage of Washington, D.C. residents would be legally able to own firearms even if they were legal to own.

 

[Treylis]

If I saw NORML ads on the Metro, I'd cheer, and not because I smoke. Seems to me McWilliams' "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do: On the Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Country" ought to be required reading.

Seconded. I'd say that everyone here who supports Prohibition... er, I mean, The War on Some Drugs should read it as well.

It always amazes me how people who will argue night and day that a gun is just an inert object with no moral value until someone uses it will then suddenly turn around and rage against drugs because they're inherently evil, or somesuch.

 

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

You beat me to it, Standing Wolf.

Regards,
Rabbit.

 

[dev_null]

I wonder what percentage of Washington, D.C. residents would be legally able to own firearms even if they were legal to own.

I'd be willing to bet the answer is "fairly small," like most (I'm wildly conjecturing here, but it's my opinion) large urban centers on either coast, DC is overwhelmingly Democrat blissninnies who actually think those gun laws are automagically making them safer from the criminals who disregard them. Sure, there'd be some, but I bet you a barrel of gold to a bucket of pigsh*t (thank you, James Clavell) if they had a referendum it'd lose.

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[Standing Wolf]

Maybe I should have been clearer. I'd be surprised to learn the percentage of convicted felons in Washington, D.C. isn't significantly higher than that of the nation as a whole.

 

[jfh]

who cares about the percentage of felons?

the point is, insofar as an advertising strategy is concerned, this one seems to me to have it all....

The few times I've ridden the Metro it was obviously packed with gov't low-level employees--most of whom, I bet, are the blissninnies we all stereotype them as.

A further conjecture is that everyone of them has a terrorist strike at DC not far below their consciousness--it may be out of sight, and sublimated, but I gotta believe they're fearful of that 'sarin strike in the subway/train'. (Fear becomes most 'real' when it is personalized to suit our circumstances.)

And equally operating on that subliminal level is a belief that they would like to do something about that if it were to happen. This is not just dreams of heroism; it is the 'normal' reaction to a perceived threat--no matter what type of personality one is/has.

So, there they are, dozing along and spacing out on the metro, or gazing around into space--and up comes the ad in front of their eyes. Whether or not they've consciously rejected it, it does present, in a tasteful way, an implied solution.

As a way to make converts, I don't think it gets much better than this. They don't get to viscerally react to a gun-owner type of message (I can just see an NRA-type variant: A red-white-blue flag background, with a lead line something like "FREEDOM ISN'T FREE:"), and this one--low key, maybe even monochrome tells them they have a choice--they can defend themselves IF they bear arms...and also works to subliminally counter that knee-jerk impulse to only "dial 911."

I don't care what they THINK about it; I want them to subliminally 'know' that (self) defense is a rational and emotive alternative to their present set of attitudes about immediate / direct threat.

It is this kind of subconscious attitudinal change that will help us win back the individual-rights RKBA issue to an implicit acceptance by a real majority of the populace.