Well... no.
Or maybe that gun control still is used in a racist context?
(Take the objections to Voter ID and see how well they remap to UBCs)
Nope.
Oh, well surely they're admiring that gun control and "common sense laws" are really code words for bans and confiscation.
Wrong again!
No, this article is all about how Gun Control just needs a new name!
Really the central thesis of this article is: "Too many people think Gun Control is a dog whistle for 'Gun bans and Confiscation', clearly the solution is to change the label used to advocate for Gun Control."
Heck the phrase "Gun Control" /itself/ was taken because the advocacy groups didn't want to have "ban" in the title.
Remember the National Coalition to Ban Handguns?
Or by its current name "Collation to Stop Gun Violence"
Or how about the
national Council to Control Handguns?
I mean they change
their name to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Which is totally different
from "Gun Violence Prevention"
Yeah... that'll fool 'em.
But the article has more to it than that.
1) The article is rampantly insulting to gun owners. Using terms like hoarders, fragile, paranoid, irrational, frenzied, and "holed up in their basement".
2) And the article
laughs of the idea that Obama wants to ban guns and that any such fears are
irrational. Except... the president
advocated and lobbied for a law that would ban the most popular rifle in America. And he pushed hard when the bill doing just
so came up in congress. He also endorsed
states that passed such bans while he was in office. Hillary Clinton has also been a long time
supporter of such a ban as well.
3) And going beyond bans, both Mr. Obama and
Mrs. Clinton have spoke approvingly of laws such as Australia's that
confiscated millions of guns.
4) Which leaves two
options for the writer of the article, Donna Dees, a)
Dess is massively ignorant of the very subject she is giving advice on
national policy. Or b) Dees is lying
about the intentions of prominent gun control advocates.
5) Taking in
1-4 why on earth would a gun
owner be persuaded by the replacement of the term "Gun Control" with "Gun Violence Prevention"?"
6) There's also that
Dees is ostensibly saying this term change is required to better sooth the
fears of gun owners. But given the
conclusion in 5 and the vitriol she uses in 1... does that make any sense?
7) Thus is Dees actually considering this change
in labels to better convince people who aren't /gun nuts/? Though that would imply that gun control has
become an unpopular term to the public at large. Something Dees studiously, perhaps
tellingly, shies from.
8) Amusingly this article is actually behind the
times. Since trying to replace "Gun
Control" with "Gun Violence Prevention" has already been
tried and now the new buzzword is "Gun Safety". Heck the Brady Campaign changed their name to
almost the exact same phrase in 2001.
9) For all the talk
about how to label things... the article has a compel lacking of any proposed
solutions. Which perhaps might be because the writer has
boxed herself. If the article talks
about how great bans and confiscations are, that means those gun owners are
right to be concerned. If the article
talks about how great Universal Background Checks are, the cited examples of death and destruction can
be readily countered by pointing out that in the vast majority of the cases background
checks /were/ conducted.
10) Thus the article reads less like an
explanation on how to save lives, and more a media trade journal on how to
better market gun control.
11) It's noteworthy
that an article that talks about dog-whistles, specifically about how they're
used in racist contexts and gun control, doesn't mention for once the racist
history of gun control. Or that there
are dog whistles still in use. How many
politicians put gun control under "urban policy"? Or the old dog whistle of "Oh well urban
areas need different laws than rural areas."
