United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- Well, Amy Dickinson felt the heat for her column that advised a father to put his hatred of guns above loving his daughter. Unfortunately, rather than seeing the light, she has chosen to double down on her ill-informed anti-Second Amendment position.
First of all, to the weapons-grade idiots who sent threats to her, you didn’t help the cause of defending the Second Amendment one bit. On the contrary, you gave Dickinson enough ammunition to stick to her guns, if you will. This is the type of stuff that is the epitome of helping Bloomberg. “Help” like that is not only counter-productive, it is wrong. Yes, Dana Loesch has taken massive amounts of abuse and threats, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
That being said, Dickinson’s follow-up piece has shown she probably was about as unreachable as Bloomberg on this issue. While Dickinson did take responsibility and issued a correction for the misleading information she put out on hollowpoint rounds, and did note a the owner of a range that she contacted viewed a .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol as “an appropriate choice” for a young woman, she still revealed hostility towards law-abiding gun owners. But the range owner had zero chance, thanks to those who sent threats. Granted, maybe his chances were slim prior to that, but the disrespectful and threatening messages torpedoed even those.
When we deal with a largely hostile media, we must always keep in mind how our support for the Second Amendment comes across. This is not about being “Vichy NRA” or “Negotiating Rights Away” or even being a “Fudd.” The fact of the matter is that those hot-headed replies to her column were unmitigated stupidity.
She also accuses pro-Second Amendment groups of “gaslighting” the public into thinking owning guns is a right. Well, no, the Second Amendment protects our pre-existing right to own firearms. And whether they are a necessity or not is a choice to be made by an American. Don’t like guns? Well, nobody makes you own one (outside of Kennesaw, Georgia – and its law should be tossed, quite frankly).
The rest of her “arguments” from gun control center more around the misuse of firearms. She mentions the Columbine shooting, as well as a number of other incidents – albeit without enough detail to determine what went on. The Columbine shooting, it should be noted, occurred despite multiple gun laws, including the Gun-Free School Zones Act.
But the thing is, there are millions of Americans who have responsibly exercised their Second Amendment rights for a variety of purposes, be it self-protection, hunting, competitive shooting, plinking, or for a host of other legal, lawful activities. Those same Americans have never shot up a school, movie theater, church, mosque, or other public venue, either.
Despite that, Dickinson is using the misuse of a tiny fraction of the 393 million firearms in the United States to justify the unfair, unjustified, and wrongful collective punishment of those Americans – and painting every one of America’s 100 million-plus firearms owners in a bad light using tools favored by bigots – to her 22 million readers. This is the harsh reality that we must accept.
We need to view these columns from Ms. Dickinson as a “lessons learned” moment. Well, more accurately, it’s a “lessons reinforced” moment about the need to do our pro-freedom advocacy the right way. We need to remember the basics when it comes to protecting our rights. You can also get involved via NRA-ILA’s Second Amendment Centers, or you can get in touch with an Election Volunteer Coordinator.
If you’re not sure how to get involved, please ask for help. Reach out to some of us here via Ammoland, or contact the NRA. In today’s media climate, a bad piece of Second Amendment activism is worse than doing NO Second Amendment activism at all.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
I wonder how many of those “threats” were posts from anti-rights people trying to make firearm owners look bad. I know there probably are some firearm owners who would post stupid comments like that, but I know there are many other posers that post anti-rights comments – we even get that here often, more so lately.
I would like to imagine that the people who write in death threats regarding things like this are really just false flag actors from the Bloomberg bunch, sadly I know that isn’t true, though I would be unsurprised if a few in fact are. It really just baffles my mind exactly what goes through the head of these people when they write those things. Frankly it is embarrassing and does our side absolutely no good whatsoever. Learn how to write a cohesive letter and rebut their idiocy with actual facts. You never know, you might just win somebody over. That’s… Read more »
As the size of the forum increases, the probability that someone will make insane threats approaches 100%. You might convince a few to stop, but you’ll never eliminate them all. If a hundred million people write to Amy with calm, rational defenses of the second amendment, and a couple schizophrenics who forgot to take their meds threaten to strangle her cat, which ones do you think we’re going to hear about? Mr. Hutchison, I agree with your condemnation of these nuts, but I wish you’d recognize that this sort of article is an exercise in futility. Your time would be… Read more »
I bet the alleged “death threats” – or at least the lion’s share of them – came from some dedicated anti-gunners, secure in the CERTAINTY that pro-RKBA individuals would be blamed. This is an old false flag technique, dating back in this country at least several decades to animal rights people and their “shoot a sign” campaign which advocated peppering road signs in major hunting areas with bullet holes, secure in the knowledge that hunters would be blamed.
Imagine all the members of Moms Demand Action hanging on every word spoken by the woman and taking it for gospel.
I don’t agree with calling this person names or threatening her. I do think it is within our rights and responsibilities to call her out on her inaccurate writings and to point out she is wrong. Harold would just double up in the corner and hide his head and that doesn’t solve anything. We do not have to tippy toe or walk on eggs around these leftists, we have the 1st. Amendment to use, as well. Just a simple, you are wrong, might get their attention and you can talk to them then. It’s like getting a mule to do… Read more »
Women always use emotional and crying to get their opinions across. Unlike men, who use facts, women like Dickerson use “feel good”, “politically correct” nonsense. Nothing you can say will ever change her mind. They are also the ones who believe that the police are their personal bodyguards. Did you notice that the gun banners. and America haters are pro-gay, pro-Muslim, pro-abortion, pro-drugs. The CDC said the leading cause of death up to the age of 14 is drownings! And 100 children a year die from playing sports The pro drug groups say nothing about the 75,000 that die each… Read more »
People like this don’t know things so much as believe things. The fact that she believes the government gives us rights is exactly the reason the education complex no longer teaches Civics and American History. The Declaration of Independence clearly states we are “… endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights …” This is probably the most well-known and most important example of the concept of Natural Rights there is. Amy is correct on one thing — A private property owner (the father) has the rights to ban firearms from his home. Of course I disagree with him. It’s… Read more »
Quote: Well, nobody makes you own one (outside of Kennesaw, Georgia – and its law should be tossed, quite frankly)
No actually it should not be tossed as you think, they actually have very little crime in Kennasaw thanks to this law.
& you are a NRA seller I assume, I am a NRA Benefactor life member but things need to change there, It is nothing but the good ole boy club now.
I have said NOTHING .Will someone say that I have said it before………………………………….