People who love their guns are iron tigers. People want meaningful gun violence reform are another type of cat. A recent experiment confirms why the NRA could arm blind dogs and no one will stop them.
You may have missed it, but MoveOn and others have been on Starbucks about its pro-gun policies. Most states with concealed and open carry laws have an "out" for retailers to help them duck civil liability suits. Post a sign asking those packing to keep their weapons out of the store, and then if someone re-enacts a shootout from High Noon, the store can claim that they promote a neutral environment.
As I pointed out in my open letter to Starbucks, their "pro gun" policy has more to do with roping in the Dunkin' lovin' pistol packers than it does with liability.
Keep a toy dog under your arm on line at Starbucks, and you have to step outside. Keep a Glock there, and you're golden.
The experiment: I made the letter an open letter, and invited both anti-gun and pro-gun groups from Facebook to comment. I also baited the article with an irresistible poll: "Should Starbucks Coffee Houses Be Gun-Free?" Like real scientists, I was pretty sure I knew what the results were going to be.
They didn't disappoint.
Those who love their guns can draw in high five and low six-figure Facebook fan bases. How does the anti-gun violence side do? Tops in the low five figures. My publication, truth-2-Power.com, runs the American Gun Victims Wall. It's taken months to approach 470 people who will read even part of the daily digest of shootings, injuries and deaths to see the most common reasons why this happens. Most sites that oppose gun violence pale in size to those of the National Religious Addition (NRA)'s First Church of the 2nd Amendment.
So I rattled my liberal stick into one gun crazed Facebook beehive with about 1900 "fans." Within minutes they began swarming my article like that killer bee movie, "The Swarm." Within a few hours, I had more than 200 bile-spewing, hate-filled, mocking, jeering deriding comments. They put word out to their legions, and started hammering the poll question, which, prior to their entry, had favored keeping guns out of Starbucks 92% to 8% with my first 180 or so anti-gun readers.
By the evening, we had 4975 "Yes" votes, on 7552 unique visitors who had made 10,016 visits to the page. The one posting in a pro-gun Facebook page was redistributed by the gun-toting faithful to dozens of other pro-gun Facebook pages, and forums on sites like kentuckyarmoryclub.com and opencarry.org and ncgunowners.com
Not that many of these fine Americans read the Daily KOS, but, just for the record, yes I've actually shot a gun, my mother never dated lower primates, and I still believe that the minority of gun owners, those 3-7% of "law abiding" citizens responsible for 80% of the intentional injury and death would not be dead or in jail, and their victims would be walking around if we had better screening, and allowed more interdiction by the police and courts for people who suffer from mental defect and substance abuse-altered judgement.
Where were the anti-gun folks? You could hear the crickets.
One group that sponsors a page, Nanas Advocating Gun Sense, with the mom-tugging-your-ear acroynm of NAGS, said:
"Amazing, isn't it? The proponents will always be much more passionate about their stand than we anti-gun violence groups. My humble little page can only dream of 500 likes! I've been unable to get beyond 26 for months! I think there's a lot of fear of committing to an anti-gun violence point of view. Which means it'll be hard to get meaningful change if we're not willing to stand up and fight for it. Keep up the good fight!'
No supporting cover from these good townspeople on the website. Like
the scene from High Noon, it was just me surrounded by 7500 armed people with around 200 of their rabid dogs barking bile for two straight days.
America is stockpiled with 270M to 310M firearms [1]. In a population of 308M people [2] That's a gun for every man woman and child in this country.
The number of gun owners is declining, though. Fewer and fewer Amuricans, er, Americans are stockpiling more and more weaponry. [3]
When a tragedy like Sandy Hook happens, millions of Americans are shocked, saddened, and angered... until the American Military Spouses Choir make a move on America's Got Talent, and the NBA hits the playoffs.
Aside from the distractions, my wholly unscientific experiment speaks to the bigger problem in the gun debate: Obsession.
As I drew together for "In Guns We Trust," possession of a firearm for protection speaks to a personality type that is fear-driven. Fear of being assaulted. Fear of the "other:" The fear that sent gun and ammo sales through the roof when Obama was running for office in 2008. Most of all fear of having their guns taken away, which the NRA stokes to keep the faithful on high boil.
For people who see guns as a "readiness" factor for everything from a carjacking to home invasion to the black helicopter guys doing a Red Dawn on Normal, IL. that channelled fear is a very powerful motivator for the gun-obsessed to organize, and attack even the most modest of proposals that might harm the hive.
By contrast, unless they are the victims, or families of the victims of gun violence, most Americans, with their rose-colored 3D glasses, who gorge themselves on thousands of hours of violence in their TV, movie, and video gaming, are upset when there is a killing that hits close to home, but they are, on the whole, disorganized, disparate, and detached.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns notes that their polling showed: "The average support for background checks for all gun sales among 41 congressional district polls was 89 percent; the average among 21 statewide polls was 86 percent." [4]
Their fear of being shot or harmed is not as elevated as the fear of the gun owners, because experience teaches the majority of Americans, who live in peaceful communities where the likelihood of being shot at is lower than that of winning the Powerball lottery. Being shot happens to someone else.
For Americans who don't want to take away every gun, but want more responsible gun ownership, and better background checks to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them, what will it take to get as active as the gun advocates?
We asked at Colombine.
We asked at Aurora.
We asked after Gabby Giffords.
We asked after Sandy Hook.
I suspect we'll still be asking after the next big thing in mass murder too...
My shiny two.