Though I used to, I no longer follow the social media account of anti-gun activist Shannon Watts. This last week I was reminded of why I made that decision when a man I follow retweeted her latest outraged excoriation of gun culture.
For a period of time, I found her work to be reasoned, thoughtful, and primarily motivated by a sincere desire to prevent human suffering.
Somewhere along the line, and perhaps this is to be expected in any political activism, Watts became jaded, undisciplined, and primarily motivated by a desire to shame, humiliate, and disparage anyone who disagrees with her.
As a result, her posts became as unhelpful as they were unkind, littered with half-truths and misrepresentations. Whatever could drive dollars and attention her way. Take the post above as a perfect example.
Candidly, I am sympathetic to her disapproval of the Republican AR-15 pins. What was the point, after all? Show your support of citizens' 2nd Amendment rights to own one by your voting record in Congress. But outside of trolling and provoking the libs, what value is there in donning a pin like that? To each their own I suppose, but I don't disagree with the conclusion it was tacky.
Of course, in fairness, Democrats have little room for objection when considering the large number of their caucus who adorned themselves at the State of the Union address with a far more offensive pin:
Pin wars aside, what disgusts me about the type of rhetoric that so readily and freely pours from activist-first types like Watts, is the total lack of inhibition when it comes to the intentional promotion of half-truths. Take this line:
Gun violence is the leading cause of death among children and teens in America.
While there is a depressing truth in that statement, it is also intentionally misleading. First of all, for children under the age of 12 (a common understanding of "child"), traffic related deaths are still far and away the leading cause of death (that is, if we are discounting abortion, of course). But activists like Watts lump "children and teens" together in order to paint a more shocking picture.
What they also intentionally omit is that over half of the number of gun deaths in this combined group are suicides. Tragic? Absolutely. But is it Watts' contention that those suicides would not have taken place absent a firearm? Are we to believe that the suicide was provoked by the mere presence or accessibility of a gun? Would those individuals still be alive had there been no gun readily available to them, or would they have found another way?
- No one disputes that the proliferation of firearms in our country provides an effective instrument for a criminal to inflict serious damage upon the innocent.
- No one should dispute that the same proliferation also provides the innocent an effective instrument to defend themselves against a violent criminal.
- No one should dispute that there is no conceivable way to confiscate or eliminate the vast number of firearms currently circulating in the country.
Disregarding or denying any of those facts provide the first sign that someone is simply not serious about this issue.
It would be nice if frauds, grifters, and political hacks could pipe down so the adults could work on this problem. Reasonable suggestions and ideas about how to minimize access to guns by criminals are helpful. Distortions, exaggerations, and misleading deceptions employed for shock value, fundraising, and scoring political points are not.
