I think we've done a poor job in the PR department. Partly because they can always hold up a bloody shirt, wet their pants and scream, "A gun did this!!!!!!!"
It's easier to get people to hate than love.
Which is why I'm very vocal about owning guns, using them, carrying them. I realize a lot of shooters are worried about public perception. At the same time, if guns are something you keep hidden and locked away and don't talk about, it creates or exacerbates the kind of fearful mystique that leads to things like Australia's storage requirement--gun, bolt and ammo stored separately in safes that are bolted to the foundation.
We should carry openly more where legal, and talk about it widely, but casually.
One of the best answers I've found to "Why do you carry a gun?" is "Same reason I have a fire extinguisher in my car and carry field dressings. Disasters happen."
It comes across as casual, thoughtful and rational.
In the political spectrum, many groups seem to assume that gun control legislation is inevitable, and then work to make it as "pleasant" as possible. I feel that should be the last resort.
Brady has also managed to create such meaningless but media-popular terms as the "Uzi Triangle" and "Ring of Fire."
Who uses these "Common" terms? Why, they do.
I'm trying to come up with a more media friendly term than to call them "paranoid nanny-staters." Unfortunately, the most accurate term I can find is a bit obscure for most readers: "Animists."
Personally, I think there needs to be class action suits against the Brady Bunch after every mass shooting in a jurisdiction they supported legislation in.
"These people died because Sarah Brady disarmed them and made moral self-defense impossible. Sarah Brady supports the rights of criminals and rapists to attack innocent people undeterred."
Screw the statistics and argument over details. Just lay blame where it exists, briefly, loudly and often. We should not be on the defensive with crap about "if you look at other jurisdictions, etc, etc." It's true, but defensive. "No, the blame for this tragedy lies on those who conspire with murderers to keep victims helpless."
Compare the two quotes:
"The NRA likes criminals and wants to keep them armed."
Er...why? What motivation?
"The Brady Bunch are paranoid and consistently push to make victims more helpless in the face of murder and rape."
Ah, they do so because they're PARANOID. They FEAR GUNS. No reasonable person fears guns, only a PARANOID.
But if we don't say the latter, there's no dispute to the former. Even educated people will repeat cool-sounding soundbites without rationally deconstructing them.
EXAMPLE: I once heard a college chemistry professor friend repeat a quote from a paper about a guy who produced ricin poison. "It's like having your own nuke in your garage."
Well, no, TC. A NUKE could be detonated in my garage and take out part of the city. RICIN has to be DISTRIBUTED through food or injection. Ricin, as toxic as it is, is NOTHING LIKE having your own nuke.
We need more pics of little girls with big grins shooting particolored target rifles. See? They're having wholesome, supervised fun, and this EVIL, UGLY OLD HAG HATES THEM BECAUSE SHE IS PARANOID.
I already wrote to Gov Blagojevich and the President of VA Tech and (politely) accused them of conspiracy to commit murder. Quite a few others did, too. When it comes down to 10-20,000 people responding to these attacks and placing blame where it lies, people will finally start to believe it.
Hmm...I should probably write to the AGs of both states and ask when these criminal charges will be forthcoming.
Certainly we shouldn't allow conspirators to premeditated mass murder to go unchallenged.