Gun violence and the marketing of fear

[SecularMotion]

Before he assassinated the only black senator in the state legislature, Dylann Storm Roof stood at the Emanuel AME bible study session in Charleston and said, “You are …taking over the country.” He had been influenced by white power groups fomenting fear.

But over the decades, no group has utilized fear more skillfully than the gun industry and its lobby. The fear they induced has armed America and created a vicious cycle of lethal gun violence—the grim mass murders as well as the 89 gun deaths per day, 31 of them homicides.

During the past half-century, as hunting declined, the gun industry shifted from weapons for killing animals to those for killing humans, and told us we were perpetually under the threat of violent attack and needed a gun “ready for immediate use.” With virtually no regulations in place, civilians could obtain increasingly lethal, concealable military style firearms with larger capacity magazines.

Gun marketers emphasized 1) fear of “criminals” (who don’t look like you), 2) fear of government, 3) fear of being outgunned, and 4) fear that any regulation of guns or their buyers was a slippery slope toward gun confiscation.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/247090-gun-violence-and-the-marketing-of-fear

[Duckhunter935]

1. The Google cut and paste drive by posts

must be getting thin, now you have to resort to BLOGS?


Lets here your comments so we can discuss it. Even this BLOG states a majority of gun deaths are from suicide. I wish we would do something with our mental health system for that.

[hack89]

2. And yet gun violence actually decreased

We have cut our murder and manslaughter rate in half. How is that possible.

[SecularMotion]

6. And yet gun owners keep stockpiling weapons

What are they afraid of?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

9. Maybe there's a poll somewhere...

...to which "gun owners" have replied indicating fear as their reason for the new purchase(s). Ya' think?

[SecularMotion]

12. Here it is

And the top reason is fear for personal safety.

[center][/center]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/165605/personal-safety-top-reason-americans-own-guns-today.aspx

[Nuclear Unicorn]

13. Personal safety/protection = fear? Then that would mean anyone who

wears a seatbelt, dons a helmet, acquires insurance, employs prophylactic birth control, is immunized, etc. does so out of fear.

[SecularMotion]

14. Those are all healthy, rational fears

Stockpiling weapons for personal safety while crime rates decrease is driven by irrational fears.

[Duckhunter935]

15. read the note

[Nuclear Unicorn]

16. Is the crime rate > 0?

Also note your survey results show a sum greater than 100% because more than 1 answer was accepted. That means that even those who answer "personal safety/protection" probably had other reasons as well.

[AtheistCrusader]

18. The irrational part is you presuming all those firearms are 'weapons' in the sense of protection.

Many target and hunting tuned firearms are pretty shit at self defense. I've got something on the order of 35 firearms, only three are really useful for the purposes of 'protection'. Most are purpose built for non-human targets, and fully half of those are tuned for paper targets.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

20. Come off it AC...

...even a pellet gun fired multiple times into an aggressor's eye or ear canal would eventually be fatal.

[AtheistCrusader]

24. i bet if i plan ahead, i could use a can of beans or a bicycle tire.

[Duckhunter935]

26. I remember that one

[the band leader]

29. statstically speaking, you're very unlikely to be killed by a shark...until you jump into the ocean

Last edited Thu Jul 16, 2015, 12:48 AM - Edit history (1)

at which time, your chances of being attacked by a shark increase and a healthy fear of being killed by a shark becomes increasingly rational. Fear of being a crime victim is a lot like that. I have two homes. One is in the country outside a town that has had one murder in the past 80 years. My other home is in a city where the violent crime rate runs about three times the national average. In this city, a few days ago, a 77 year old man was stabbed and beaten to death in his home. I get alerts when 911 is called in my neighborhood. 20 seconds ago, as I typed this, it alerted me to a violent person with a gun or knife. This person is presently within 1 mile of where I am now sitting. My wife had to call 911 last week when a man was standing on our front porch at 2 in the morning looking in our windows. You better believe there was a phone in one hand and a gun in the other. So, I'm pretty sure fear of being a crime victim is quite rational for me.

I think you completely misunderstand the rationale behind stockpiling firearms too btw. It has little to do with personal safety.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

17. I searched and searched

"Fear" doesn't appear.

Are you in fear of guns?
Do you fear that others are not?

Is this fear inference of yours an assumption?
As we all know assumption makes...

[ileus]

25. Are you scared of a fire if you have smoke detectors?

Or is it just wise to be prepared ???


Safety and Security should never be confused with Fear...

[Duckhunter935]

10. Well I am not afraid of anything

All of my weapons are for shooting nice round paper plates.

The ones that I hear are afraid are the pro control people that are so scared to even see a weapon they go apoplectic. Now who is really afraid?

[krispos42]

21. Two things, I guess

One, your side keep screaming about all the violence and murder and assault and robbery and other violent crime to the point that a vast majority of the country thinks that crime is up. This is, of course, false. It's down 50% the last couple of decades. But it is an example of successful propaganda on your side's part.

Two, your side keeps screaming about a) banning "assault weapons", i.e., taking away people's guns and sharply reducing the kinds of guns available to own, b) that there are too many guns and "we" need to "do something" about it, and c) making gun ownership a tightly-regulated privilege extended by the government (like European countries that are endlessly used as examples).


So in light of those points, that might be something your side might want to ponder.

[pipoman]

3. LOL...I just checked in over at the tree house...wondering why you bother coming here

To post this easily refuted tripe... it's been a few months for me.. And apparently everyone else too...I was almost rolled over by a tumbleweed, and every thread had dust I could write my name in. ..what a dreadfully boring place what with the ideological cleansing y'all have done over there....any regrets? Or do you think it is rolling along swimmingly?

[Duckhunter935]

7. well to be fair

they do have like two regular posters, but get almost no responses, not even from the hosts. I think one host posts in ATA more than in his own group.

[Lizzie Poppet]

8. Oh, but it IS "rolling along swimmingly" over there!

Every bit as much so as their cause...

[Duckhunter935]

11. so busy

It must be hard to post in that group!

[Shamash]

4. Mmmm...the smell of gun control ignorance in the morning, with a side order of projection. n/t

[Nuclear Unicorn]

5. Really? Cuz I thought it was the Controllers always crying, "Them gunnerz is gonna kill us all!"

"Won't somebody think of the children!"

"You can't defend yourself from rape and even if you do you're just allowing mass murderers to murder massly!"

That's pretty much what it's like around here 24/7.

[pablo_marmol]

19. Example of Controller hypocrisy #481

Controller talking point coaches actually have instructed their minions to focus on emotion in making their points.

The Controllers are constantly yapping about the firearm homicide rate, while suppressing the number of those homicides which are suicides, and the fact that gun violence is less that half of what it was in 1993.

I (we) could go on like this for pages.

Yet it's gun rights activists who rely on fear?

[ileus]

22. What should be my next pistol???

I just picked up a new truck and fishing gun.

What I'm thinking of next is a 10mm for carrying while hunting and a home defense pistol. Reloading should help but 40 brass is cheaper so I could pick up a 40 conversion barrel and use that for plinking time.

Or should I pick up another 9mm except a dedicated "target" model.

I could also use a nice revolver the only revolver I have now is a 642. Maybe a 9mm target revolver...that would be awesome.

[Duckhunter935]

27. I would leve to get a good 10mm

[Eleanors38]

23. "...Over the decades" Jim Crow gun laws have collapsed in the South, and blacks can own

and carry arms within any state in the South, whereas before they could not legally do so.

Jim (large, raucous black bird) laws still persist in some Northern states which cling to "may issue" laws that favor the wealthy, politically connected, and celebrities.

The commentary in the OP is kind of amateurish.

[pablo_marmol]

28. I got your fear RIGHT HERE!

Currently in LBN, a lot of hooplahs over a non-story. A Texas burger chain has decided to outlaw open carry, and the responders on the thread are either.....

1) shouting yipeeee!
2) slurring a great many people that will never harm anyone with their pistols
3) talking about how they wet their pants when they see non-law enforcement personnel carrying openly

......or all/part of the above.

Even though they're aware that more than a few people will be carrying concealed regularly in the establishment, somehow they're no longer afraid that someone will "snap" and kill an employee over a botched order, and they feel that some sort of great victory has been won. Talk about ninnies!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141144068