A dissenting view of the NRA statement [CharlieBrown'sD????]

DrewM explained his reasons for disliking the NRA's statement on the Newtown shooting in a post on Friday. And like the typical rationalist that most of us are, he took it apart for some pretty good reasons, one of which is that using federal dollars and creating one more top-heavy boondoggle to put armed guards in every school in the nation is not in our best interest. As he correctly points out, it is, thankfully, an exceedingly rare event, and would be a huge waste of resources to try to prevent in that way.

But....

...whether it was an accident or by intent, the NRA succeeded in forcing the MBM and the left (but I repeat myself) to refocus their attention away from "ASSAULT WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!" and onto something different. And who cares that the new topic doesn't make perfect sense. It puts into the public consciousness the idea that maybe gun-free zones aren't such a good idea. And maybe a double-tap, and a third to the head of the bedwetting little ponce who perpetrated this evil is a better way of dealing with the issue than another round of demonization of inanimate objects.

Was it perfect? Oh, hell no! We stink at this kind of manipulation. But it was an attempt, and I think it was partly successful. Someone (not Thomas Jefferson) once said, "never let a crisis go to waste." Using a page from their playbook isn't such a bad thing.

[Addendum] Hopeless, in comment #104 nails it:

Blame is different from solutions. Blaming Hollywood doesn't mean censor them. It means blame them because they are the enemy and that's how politics is played.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Open Blogger at 04:10 PM

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