Gawker's Adam Weinstein directs our attention to a new NRA video starring Dom Raso, a pumped-up ex-Navy SEAL who's part of what's basically a Mod Squad of new young NRA spokesmodels.
After the obligatory corporate-metal guitar intro, Raso says this:
Propaganda: ideas or or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, or a government.What I love about this is that he's not saying, "Don't believe everything the news media tells you" -- what he's saying is: 100% of all news reports are wrong. Don't believe any of them. They're all lies.
That sounds a lot like what I see every single day when I actually waste my time to keep up with what the news media is saying. I know this firsthand from seeing and hearing about media reports of what I was doing in the military that weren't even close to the truth. If you or someone you know wasn't actually on the "X," then you're getting third-party information. And we all know what happens when "he said, she said."
Yes, that's the kind of paranoia we want to encourage in heavily armed people, right?
And if you don't believe that's his point, here's his clarification:
What I mean by that is if you weren't actually there to witness the events, then you truly have no idea what really happened.Er ... Dom? You say you spoke with guy who were on the scene -- but I didn't. You told me not to believe anything unless I was personally "on the 'X,'" or someone I know was "on the 'X.'"
Let's bring up a recent example: the Navy Yard shooting. Same gun, different slay? To this day, I still talk to people that believe there was an AR used in the Navy Yard shooting, thanks to inaccurate media reports at the time of the incident. There wasn't an AR there at all. It was a shotgun, the same gun the vice president recommended we should go buy for self-defense. And I know that because I spoke with guys that were at the scene. That's accurate information.
I don't know you. HOW CAN I POSSIBLY TRUST YOU??? YOU'RE PART OF THE MEDIA, TOO!!!
(Excuse me while I paint all the windows black and wrap myself in more tinfoil.)
I know, I know: I'm not supposed to think that he's part of the media. The liberal media is the media. He's on our side. He's the conduit of accurate information.
That's the way cult leaders talk: Everyone in the outside world wants to lie to you and harm you. Trust only me -- I'm the one who'll protect you. That's the way the NRA wants gunners to think.
*****
As Weinstein notes at Gawker, Raso goes on to complain (based on no evidence) that the media has stopped referring to murders as "murders" and uses the term "shootings" instead:
Here's another trick of theirs: When someone commits a murder, it used to be a murder, right? But now they race to label anything with a gun as a shooting, because they know how much more attention they're going to get with that word.That's right -- it's now Orwellian to refer to an incident in which someone is shot as a "shooting."
I have no words.
I suspect the reason the NRA changed its mind and apologized to the Open-carry groups, is because the gun and ammo manufacturing companies hope that us non-gun nuts constantly seeing armed people in every public place, they can make EVEN MORE profits if we get so scared, we run out an get guns and ammo to protect ourselves from the people already out there, carrying guns and ammo in public.
ReplyDeleteFollow the money.
Well, it's really only when someone is killed with a gun that we do this. And we only do it because we do want to take peoples guns and brand gun owners as crazy. It's part of the culture war.
ReplyDeleteSo they are correct on this. No sense in hiding from it. Shove it in their faces. Yes we do this, no we can't stop this, yes we want to turn something you enjoy into an object of humiliation. Yes we will win, no this isn't your country anymore. Yes you are histories losers.
No, we don't do this -- Hunky Boy offers no evidence that there's a refusal to use the word "murder" in these stories, and neither do you, Geese.
ReplyDeleteShow me the evidence. Geese. Go on, I'll wait.
I'm not really sure we need to do anything to brand gun owners as crazy at this point. Their activist groups are pretty much doing that on their own.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think we see the term "killing" as much as the term "shooting" in most stories about gun-related homicides. Is it wrong to be more specific/accurate in news stories? Isn't that what Raso wants from the media?
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, most stories I read about the Santa Barbara attacks used the term "premeditated mass-murder."
I thought the NRA were eager to have us rebrand murders by gun as mere shootings? A tremendous number of shooting deaths are not reported as murders at all because they are put down to negligent discharge of a firearm, accident, or otherwise redefined out of existence. Calling something a shotting and not a murder (if it happens) comes at the point in the public discussion where fault has not been legally assigned. These people are just stunningly gullible, basically and prefer to willfully believe transparently stupid stuff.
ReplyDeleteYes, but when a person is killed in stabbing "they" bury it in the last paragraph!
ReplyDeleteOK, not really, but why are you thinking about what he said when you should be buying another gun!! [flaps arms excitedly.]
As an aside, has anyone checked with whether he did speak with "guys" (employees? police?) at the "scene"?
If we could get past the gun hysteria for a moment... the damnedest thing he is right. Absolutely, irrequivocally right... the news media is pure "propaganda: ideas or or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, or a government." Today it is the Retard Party and the American Nazis who pull their strings. Hitler only lost his life.
ReplyDeleteI nearly shot my father-in-law's tv this morning, watching "liberal" MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell spewing war propaganda from Normandy. You want to fight a fucking war? Here's your gun, you canteen and your paisley pink war criminal suit. Don't ask me to do it (been there, done that), don't ask my sons to do it, don't ask my grandsons to do it. You want a fucking war? Go fight it yourself.
No fear, just pure, unadulterated contempt.
Wait, we're calling shootings, shootings now? This is terrible and must be stopped at once. We should call them killings. But what if not everyone shot is actually killed? In that case I guess we're not supposed to pay attention to these violent outbursts at all because FReedom.
ReplyDelete