There are ways to preserve shooting. Some of them work. Some of them don't. You can encourage people who are already gun owners to open their hearts and checkbooks to fund-raisers and lobbyists. That works as long as the lobbyists actually accomplish something and don't turn into just a self-perpetuating fundraising machine. You can also encourage new people to become shooters or at least to be familiar with it. That way they will support things which support their hobby or at least they will not exert social pressure on friends and relatives who want to give it a try.
The first is easy but self-limiting. The second is difficult but ultimately the only way to win in the long term. It ties into a post on another topic in MT.
In late 2006 the NRA stepped on its pecker and shot itself in the foot with a really stupid, racist comic book designed to make Joe and Jane Whitebread cower in fear at the hordes of mud people oozing through the window. They twisted and fibbed and tried to pretend it never happened. But finally they said "Yes, it's our baby, but we decided to abort it." It was a three-day wonder that disappeared without a trace. Like most of their political material it wasn't designed to change a single mind. It was intended to make the believers afraid and run to the NRA-ILA credit cards in hand to Keep Them Safe. That's why I'm no longer the NRA. The adrenal glands just wear out under a constant barrage of FEAR! FEAR! FEAR! Well, that and the time a training counselor referred to my wife as "that pretty Colored girl" during the Basic Pistol instructor course a while back.
I just saw something on Slate that fits nicely into the second category. Now, Slate is somewhat left of most gunnies. It's middle-of-the-road white collar mildly liberal with a self-satisfied contrarian streak. You wouldn't go there to find Mallard Fillmore or Mike Fluggenock. The bland contemporary Doonesbury is as radical as they get.
So it was a surprise to see this video on the front page. One of their reporters went to the only public shooting club in Manhattan. She went through the safety course, shot a .22 rifle and had fun. I have to add that even for a brand new shooter she wasn't very good. I think she hit the target once. But she enjoyed herself and was as proud as could be of that one hole in the paper. The interviews with the RSO and customers - mostly young, White and female - were non-judgmental and not defensive. It looked like everyone had a good time. Nobody felt threatened. And a few of Slate's readers had a chance to look outside their comfortable little box. It won't change worlds. But it will do more to bring in new shooters who would not otherwise have considered it than most of the appeals to naked terror from the lobbying industry.
It's yet another reason to support groups like the Pink Pistols. They are one of the few organizations that has any cross-over appeal between traditional gunnies and traditional lefties. Without that shooters are facing a demographic and political decline which will render the whole issue moot in a generation. The country is increasingly brown and urban. Hunting is in a long downward slope, and violent crime is far reduced from its peaks in the 1930s and 1970s. Increased specialization in so many things has put guns into the category of a tool that is only relevant for people in certain well-defined job categories - cop, soldier, security guard. Anyone else is an amateur meddling in things best left to the pros.
The first is easy but self-limiting. The second is difficult but ultimately the only way to win in the long term. It ties into a post on another topic in MT.
In late 2006 the NRA stepped on its pecker and shot itself in the foot with a really stupid, racist comic book designed to make Joe and Jane Whitebread cower in fear at the hordes of mud people oozing through the window. They twisted and fibbed and tried to pretend it never happened. But finally they said "Yes, it's our baby, but we decided to abort it." It was a three-day wonder that disappeared without a trace. Like most of their political material it wasn't designed to change a single mind. It was intended to make the believers afraid and run to the NRA-ILA credit cards in hand to Keep Them Safe. That's why I'm no longer the NRA. The adrenal glands just wear out under a constant barrage of FEAR! FEAR! FEAR! Well, that and the time a training counselor referred to my wife as "that pretty Colored girl" during the Basic Pistol instructor course a while back.
I just saw something on Slate that fits nicely into the second category. Now, Slate is somewhat left of most gunnies. It's middle-of-the-road white collar mildly liberal with a self-satisfied contrarian streak. You wouldn't go there to find Mallard Fillmore or Mike Fluggenock. The bland contemporary Doonesbury is as radical as they get.
So it was a surprise to see this video on the front page. One of their reporters went to the only public shooting club in Manhattan. She went through the safety course, shot a .22 rifle and had fun. I have to add that even for a brand new shooter she wasn't very good. I think she hit the target once. But she enjoyed herself and was as proud as could be of that one hole in the paper. The interviews with the RSO and customers - mostly young, White and female - were non-judgmental and not defensive. It looked like everyone had a good time. Nobody felt threatened. And a few of Slate's readers had a chance to look outside their comfortable little box. It won't change worlds. But it will do more to bring in new shooters who would not otherwise have considered it than most of the appeals to naked terror from the lobbying industry.
It's yet another reason to support groups like the Pink Pistols. They are one of the few organizations that has any cross-over appeal between traditional gunnies and traditional lefties. Without that shooters are facing a demographic and political decline which will render the whole issue moot in a generation. The country is increasingly brown and urban. Hunting is in a long downward slope, and violent crime is far reduced from its peaks in the 1930s and 1970s. Increased specialization in so many things has put guns into the category of a tool that is only relevant for people in certain well-defined job categories - cop, soldier, security guard. Anyone else is an amateur meddling in things best left to the pros.
Fun, non-threatening and done with people you are used to having fun with is always a good way to make strange things comfortable.
