ShortTimer
JBHGun “Control” is an anachronism. Look at the exact wording of the Pew question: “What do you think is more important — to protect the right of Americans to own guns, or to control gun ownership?” This question uses the language of the gun lobby (rights), not the language of those working for stronger gun laws (safety). And it pits a right versus simply “control” for its own sake.
I don’t assume nefarious motives on Pew’s part. When this question was first written, “control” was indeed part of the gun debate vernacular. But it is no longer. Using the word “control” is a poor description of that side’s position. (While the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence was once called Handgun Control, Inc., the group hasn’t had` “control” in its name in over ten years.)
What if there was decades of tracking of something like “what do you think is more important — to protect the rights of gun owners, or to protect the safety of everyone from gun violence?” Results would, to be sure, be different from the current question.
Oh but yes, it’s time to change the debate by changing what words mean.
All outlets could use a gun question rewrite. Pew is not the only polling outlet using outdated language. CBS, ABC/Washington Post, Time Magazine, and Gallup all have used the word “control” in their recent national surveys. In many of these questions, the word “control” can easily be cut, such as in the ABC/Washington Post question, “Do you favor or oppose stricter gun control laws in this country?” However, I prefer a three-way question about whether laws should be made stronger, weaker, or “kept the same.” Gallup, NBC/WSJ, CBS/NYT, and Time Magazine have all asked a three-way question, although the latter two, again, include the word “control.” (The Polling Report has a good collection of gun questions across outlets.)
Ah, time for gun control, but this time we’ll call it something else. She writes plenty of anti-gun crap, and links to some of her other stories.
The author also makes videos for Dictator Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Citizens Rights group.
The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they, or at least the best among them. have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before. The people are made to transfer their allegiance from the old gods to the new under the pretense that the new gods really are what their sound instinct had always told them but what before they had only dimly seen. And the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning. Few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regimes are expressed.
- F. A. Hayek
See, you’re opposed to criminal violence. You’re opposed to illegal activities. So how do you make a war against individual freedom palatable? You make them “illegal guns”. Of course, “illegal guns” are subject to laws, which are often themselves unconstitutional and immoral, disarming the law-abiding while empowering the predator. “Illegal guns” are subject to the paperwork and regulation of dictatorial regimes whose real motives are removal of power and authority from the individual.
Gun control is a great phrase, because it includes CONTROL – which is the primary feature of people pushing for expanded gun laws. They want control, they want power, they want to take away power from the citizen, and enshrine power in the state (or their party). Of course the left wants to get away from saying they want to control you. People know that being controlled is a bad thing – Americans by our very nature reject being controlled. So the left says “let’s make it about criminal guns”. What’s criminal becomes whatever the gun-banner says it is.
What’s criminal in one state isn’t criminal in another. Of course, what’s in another state isn’t under total control. Hence why NYC Dictator Bloomberg sends undercover police to Arizona gun shows to break federal laws. They’re out of their jurisdiction, conducting illegal activities for their Mayor-King’s political desires to push for control of citizens’ rights across the nation.
The thing is, this isn’t about “control for its own sake”, as the lefty author puts forth – it’s about control for the sake of the elite Ruling Class consolidating power. So they have to change the names before we the public get more wise to their schemes.
How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.
- Former Texas State Representative Dr. Suzanna Hupp
From the lefty author:
This question uses the language of the gun lobby (rights), not the language of those working for stronger gun laws (safety).
Those working for more dictatorial gun laws and gun control are not working towards safety. They are working towards more power for themselves. They don’t care about safety, they don’t care about people, they care about their own power – they care about control.
Dr. Suzanna Hupp talking to Congress:
Penn & Teller breaking it down:
