I’m all for people being informed on the issues. A big problem that I have with much of the information out there these days, though, is that so much of it doesn’t want to inform people or want them to think. It wants to mold other people’s opinions to fit someone else’s desired outcome.
We call that propaganda, and our world is awash in it.
In fact, any controversial topic where emotions run high has propaganda being thrown around constantly. The gun rights debate is no exception to this rule.
Interestingly, though, some anti-2A propaganda is not having the outcome that it’s creators intend. A writer going by TTAG News Contributor writes,
For the overall sample, more fear tracked with more support for gun control — a modest effect, but in the direction the restriction crowd would expect. Turn the dial to specific subgroups and it inverts.
For young men, Republicans, and self-identified conservatives, the correlation ran the other way. The more fear they reported, the more they supported expanded access to guns. Fear pushed them toward keeping and carrying their firearms, not surrendering them. The researchers’ own framing: young adults are divided on gun control, and the divisions widen sharpest right where fear is highest.
That is a political problem for the “do something” message, because the “something” has always meant more restrictions. If a sizable slice of the youngest voting bloc processes the same mass-shooting coverage into a stronger belief that they personally need a firearm, the ad spend is pushing both directions at once.
Does their fear mongering help their anti-2A cause? Overall, it appears that it might, at least modestly.
But it also drives towards gun ownership the kind of young people that we would prefer to have and carry firearms because they’re the ones more likely to be responsible and to use them wisely.
And I appreciate a win for our side at the expense of the propagandists out there.
Because moral and responsible young people are exactly who we want rising up to take their place as protectors of the innocent in this world. Goodness knows that anti-2A activists aren’t helping to make the world a safer place.