Korwin Love Bombs The Antis

[AZRickD]

http://www.gunlaws.com/DuquesneSpeech.htm

For some reason, Alan Korwin of gunlaws.com was invited to be the token gunnie in a room full of anti-rights sycophants.

One might imagine oneself in that situation, trading barbs and devolving into a screaming match. After all, he was in a roomful of antis who came to rejoice with anti-rights Supermen (Tom Mauser, Jim Brady, and statistician David Hemenway of Harvard who, for some reason, doesn't do demographics because he apparently doesn't want to find out much about who he says is doin' the killin'.)

He followed featured speaker Tom Mauser whose son was killed many years ago and has become a staple of these gatherings (Some years ago, I exchanged some pleasant -- on my end -- e-mails with Mr. Mauser. He didn't like me much)...

While addressing the National Symposium on Handgun Violence at Duquesne University, Tom Mauser displays the shoes of his son, Daniel, who was killed at Columbine High School. Mr. Hauser wears the shoes on special occasions.

Some Korwin snippets (about his tactics, not necessarily the most potent phrases):

I’ve been studying persuasion skills for a long while now, and here was an acid test. Was it possible to address an audience like this and not get booed off stage? Could I manage civil discourse with the participants at the luncheon beforehand, maintain composure through the staging, and end up sociable at the afterglow dinner at a fine restaurant?

It’s my belief that the words exist in the universe to convince anyone of anything true, regardless of their predispositions. The trick is in finding those words, in the moment, and delivering them in a way that works, with the proper aplomb. You may not always find the words, but the words are always there. Think of it this way. What would Jesus say. The words are there. Could I find enough of them?

Their emotions had been played upon all afternoon, so I continued the trend. I told of a woman awakened to find a knife-wielding, ski-masked intruder in her home, and how she had to shoot him while crouched behind her bed, after having called 911. She had to keep firing until the big guy finally collapsed. The police arrived only nine minutes later. You could hear a pin drop.

Would you deny this woman her right to live, by taking her gun away? Isn’t the message, “If it saves one life...”? Do you have the moral authority, or a sense of self righteousness that says she must die because you think guns are bad? I pressed on.

The audience was mine. I had achieved my primary goal. Show a roomful of fearful anti-rights activists that guns are good sometimes, and not get yelled at for it. Bring reason and insight to a crowd, steeped in ignorance and fear, that sorely needed it. I had found the words, and the demeanor, and made the most of it. The university had done good finding me.

We can’t get to that world because of what I call the Four Horseman of Human Havoc -- Angry, Hungry, Stupid and Wicked. Oh, we might be able to solve Hungry someday, but the other three? And that’s the rub. Until there is a fundamental change in human nature, the good guys need the guns to protect themselves from the bad guys. That’s why you have all those armed people in the room, right? No one disagreed. If guns suddenly disappeared, the good guys would have to invent them all over again. That’s because Guns Protect You.

Which leads to a counterintuitive truth. We’re safer now than we were then when there were no guns. The ability to effectively project force keeps us safer. You couldn’t ride the highways back then, now you can. For all the crime you hear about, things aren’t all that bad.

Those of you who just want guns to go away, you don’t want to take guns away from the police do you? Heads shake no. Of course you want the police armed... and that’s a very pro gun position. You instinctively understand the value of guns. You just want someone else to hold it for you. But Jeff Snyder, in his landmark book Nation of Cowards, suggests it is unethical, immoral and politically corrupt to entrust your right to and precious gift of life to someone else.

Also, if you want to cut the “gun deaths” in half, recognize that many if not most are actually “war deaths,” killings in the war on some drugs. The government wages this war, encouraging armed camps, and they shoot at each other and themselves. Declare an armistice and stop the killing. You’ll reach your goal faster than fighting the civil rights lobby that protects the Second Amendment.

Ask a politician when we can declare victory and stop, or just declare defeat and stop, and you’ll learn it’s a perpetual war, like Orwell warned us about. The analogy to alcohol prohibition couldn’t be clearer. While the ban is on, the killings continue. Stop the war, the killings go away, even though all the problems caused by the vegetable products continue.

Lots more.

Rick

 

[John G]

Excellent. This is a seminar on how to present a pro-gun, pro-self defense philosophy.

 

[AZRickD]

It takes lots of practice. I can do it in short bursts. I've seen Alan do it in long-form.

 

[IllHunter]

He illustrates the need, so well

I often get frustrated and jump to rights, idiots and sheep. This usually starts a brawl and I escape out the window

 

[misterwhipple]

Thank you, AZRickD. That was good for me to read.

 

[rainbowbob]

Great Post! Man...just in those highlights the man hit so many bulls-eyes it was uncanny.

 

[Tinker]

Thanks for posting.

 

[Robert Hairless]

But Jeff Snyder, in his landmark book Nation of Cowards, suggests it is unethical, immoral and politically corrupt to entrust your right to and precious gift of life to someone else.

I think it's unbelievably corrupt--in all ways--for someone who is unwilling to defend his life to pay someone else to risk his own life for that person.

I have an even lower opinion of people who won't defend the lives of their very own families but prefer to wait for someone else to do it for them.

 

[Poper]

Ten against one. Hah. I had them outnumbered.

+1!
When you have the truth on your side, they ARE outnumbered!
Poper

 

[MechAg94]

I like that first story about the lady fighting off a knife wielding attacker.

1. It is a personal and individual story that is both emotional and hard to refute w/o looking like the bad guy; similar to stories anti-gunners use. Forcing people to put themselves in that vulnerable position is effective. It puts the emphasis on the phrase the "when seconds count, the police are minutes away."

2. There really isn't a good argument for alternative forms of defense since she is a woman and presumably not going wrestle the guy to the floor and the fact that he was already in a position to hurt her so locking herself away wasn't an option.

I have found it is very difficult to get anti's to really think about those scenarios. The one time I can remember doing so, the answer back was "well, the odds of that happening are really small. How often does that happen?" My only answer was 'often enough that I want to be prepared for my sake and my family'.

 

[anthrem]

Reading that made my chest swell with pride...nothing greater that the truth in dealing with the gun control crowd. Logic has a warmth all its own.

We need more of this kind of rhetoric, before we, as a culture, are consumed by the lack of logic that emotional reasoning can created.

 

[nplant]

Well done, Mr. Korwin!

Gosh, I feel like I do okay against anti-rights folk, but that's just amazing. I'm going to spread this far and wide.

 

[Cmdr. Gravez0r]

PURE GOLD

Saved for reference

 

[rainbowbob]

I think it's unbelievably corrupt--in all ways--for someone who is unwilling to defend his life to pay someone else to risk his own life for that person.

I can't agree that it is necessarily currupt to pay someone else to defend you - if you can afford it. Why is it any different than paying a professional to do anything for you?

I mean, let's face it...the woman in the story who fought off a knife-wielding assailant would probably have been better off with an armed guard. But of course that isn't practical or affordable for most of us.

It is certainly currupt for people who CAN afford an armed guard - or those who have them provided at tax-payor expense - to advocate the rest of live unarmed and unprotected.

 

[bannockburn]

AZRickD

Thanks for the insights; made for great reading.

 

[WayneConrad]

(never mind)

 

[misterwhipple]

I can't agree that it is necessarily currupt to pay someone else to defend you - if you can afford it. Why is it any different than paying a professional to do anything for you?

In most cases, we hire someone to do something that a) we can't do for ourselves, like surgery, or b) isn't convenient to us, like changing the oil. Such things are simply the mutual service of ordinary commerce. They are neither cowardly, nor do they involve judging my own life as more valuable than someone else's (at least, not necessarily). That would be corrupt.

So, hiring someone to risk his life with me is legitimate. Reducing the value of his life to mere money so I can risk his life instead of mine would not be.

 

[AZRickD]

Man...just in those highlights the man hit so many bulls-eyes it was uncanny.

Not uncanny at all...

It was not by chance. I've seen Alan evolve his arguments over the last 15 years or so. He practices it in the heat of action with cameras rolling, over e-mail lists, and in special "dinners" with fellow gunnie activists. Ideas are bounced around. Alan incorporates. This was something of a culmination, I think.

When I would call into talk radio shows I would make two or three bullet points on a pad of paper -- and stick to the message. All this after spending several months deep in books trying to figure out the arguments.

Practice makes perfect. Alan is in a different sphere, but all of us can do a fraction of what he does. All for the better.

Rick

 

[AZRickD]

Alan asked me to post this (I thought he was already a member)...

Thanks for all the kind words folks. Admitedly I've had some practice at this, but the key is this: it's not about winning a debate, it's about convincing the other guy. Learning more about 2A is not the answer, most of us probably know too much of that already. For me, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and the book Getting To Yes are more important, so much so that I offer them on my site gunlaws.com.

Rights activists need those tools, not another history lesson. And as Rick knows, word choices are critical -- never say pro gun, always say pro rights, casting them as anti rights (instead of anti gun which is a good position for them if they're convinced guns are evil). I have more of that kind of thinking in my Politically Corrected Glossary, also on my website. If you decide to go there, click the Positions Papers buttons for persuasive arguments and rational thought that helps sway poor misled anti-rights souls who need our sympathy, compassion and a digestible dose of common sense.

Alan.

 

[rainbowbob]

In most cases, we hire someone to do something that a) we can't do for ourselves...

There are many who - for whatever reasons - are not able or competent to defend themselves. This doesn't make them currupt. And let's face it...for ever buyer is a seller. Is that currupt?

 

[Feanaro]

I can't agree that it is necessarily currupt to pay someone else to defend you - if you can afford it.

It's not corrupt to hire a bodyguard. It IS corrupt to say that no normal person should own a firearm... but want and accept protection by the gun. It would be like a pacifist hiring thugs to beat up people who tick him off, it just doesn't jive.

Our opponents can see the utility of firearms and their used. As Mister Korwin points out, at some level they understand why firearms exist. Most people lack the ability to really run their own ideas through the wringer. This exposes the contradiction in their beliefs. They claim to hate firearms but wouldn't want their police armed with mean words. They want the benefits of firearms but they don't want (most) people to have them.

 

[AZRickD]

It IS corrupt to say that no normal person should own a firearm... but want and accept protection by the gun.

Think Rosie O'Donnell and dozens of other celebs, Captains of Industry and political elites.

Remember, Alan used a gentle form of verbal jujitsu that allowed the antis to confront themselves. Did they really hate guns? They sure felt comforted by the hired guns around the room, didn't they?

While I used to dislike the use of case studies in my own work (epidemiology), I found that their ethical use can be used to drive home a point. Alan's case study concerned Arizona's own Mary Ann Watkins who ended up at that Yuma rest stop face to face with a cowboy-trucker with a coil of rope in his hand. Alan relayed the sanitized version of that story. Here is the original 1994 version...

http://www.lizmichael.com/bitches.htm

In case that URL was sanitized by the auto-censors, try this...

http://www.gunowners.org/wv20.htm

After relating the Readers Digest version of that all-to-real story, the anti-rights people have to come to terms with their sacred beliefs versus the successful rebuke of sexual assault.

BTW, there are still doubters out there. Alan sent me this from a doubter who saw his speech...

Hi Alan,

I just saw you on C-Span, April 8th 2008.

You said, "Guns save hundreds of thousands of lives a year."

You said this after describing a situation in which a women killed her intruder.

I think this claim needs to be fully explored for veracity because if it is true, we gun control advocates will need to take pause.

If on the other hand, this statement is off by say 99.9%, then it is arguably a lie. As a non-fiction writer, your moral and ethical integrity are in question.

I've posted this e-mail on our blog so that you may defend your statement publicly. Please go there http://oneutah.org/2008/04/15/a-search-for-truth-about-guns-and-their-usefulness/ to respond.

Thanks
Cliff

This is Cliff:

Ya gotta go to that link to read what the antis have to say.

 

[AZRickD]

Here is Korwin's response in that blog. It really looks like the blogger is trying to use Korwin's notoriety to increase his hits...

Here's Alan's pic, since Mr. Mauser's was linked above...

Alan Korwin Says:
APRIL 15TH, 2008 AT 11:38 AM

Cliff,

Thanks for writing.
C-SPAN taped the symposium when it was held on April 9, so it’s unlikely you saw it broadcast on April 8.

I’ve been waiting for word on when it would air, and have not heard yet. I’m presuming the Duquesne organizers will be among the first to know, no word yet. Do you recall if you saw the entire Symposium?

The 13 scholarly studies I referred to, which indicate between 700,000 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses a year, are summarized, as I mentioned, in the book Armed, by Gary Kleck and Don Kates. The differences in the numbers are due to different time periods and sets of respondants examined in the various studies. You can see the book, or get a copy, here:
http://www.gunlaws.com/books4.htm

The example of a woman saving herself is common in real life, but mercilessly censored in mainstream news reports. This leads to a hopelessly distorted impression among the public, who are flooded with stories of criminals misusing guns, sometimes from thousands of miles away, and don’t have a clue about all the good that guns do. We sell four books with nothing but accounts of people using guns in self defense. For an excellent account of media bias on the subject, see John Lott’s book, The Bias Against Guns, here:
http://www.gunlaws.com/books4.htm

Is that sufficient? Will you now take that pause?

Somehow I suspect you may not, because this isn’t a policy issue, it’s a medical one:
http://www.gunlaws.com/GunHate.htm

Thanks again for writing, questioning my “moral and ethical integrity,” and giving me an opportunity to respond.
Alan.

 

[JCMAG]

Thank you for posting this Rick. It is an inspiration to rights advocates and those who attempt to defend their rights everyday.

I would be very curious to know how that forum turned out. Did they applaud him? How did they respond?

 

[AZRickD]

They didn't laugh at a couple of his light jokes (we barely laugh at them either).

But at the end of his write-up (available at the link above), he writes...

I summarized my main points and, since Duquesne is a Catholic school, I closed with “God bless and keep America, the ten Commandments and the Ten Amendments. Thank you.” The applause was as good as any other, except for Tom who, choking back tears, got an ovation.