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 »
IMOA Amy Dickinson shouldn’t have written anything about the firearm or ammunition she obviously knew little to nothing about all the while stating inaccuracies that these bullets explode and were illegal. There are people that will read her column and believe it’s the truth when there was none or it was inaccurate. People who wrote threatening or intimidating letters should have written letters calling her out on her lack of firearms and ammunition by giving her verifiable facts.
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 »
This is an appeasement approach as you will never get these marxists to accept clear, concise, and constitutionally valid arguments. Hence, I just fume for a moment and move on because trying to reason with the village idiot is proving Einstein’s insanity proposition.
@Tad
Just so you are aware, Harold Hutchison has been working for a long time writing about why Second Amendment supporters should give in and compromise with those gun grabbers. That’s not trolling, that is fact. Evidence of it is spread like manure all over ammoland.
Hutchison is the last person we need or want communicating with either side.
Would add; ” A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the… Read more »
@Greg K.
What an entrance. Great quote man, great quote.
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.
Moms demand action is a porn movie and they are the ones who worked in it!
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 »
I agree with the fact that you don’t need to be threatened to think one way or another. But sometimes the lie has been going on for so long it become first nature to be afraid (Thanks Media/Political goofballs). It’s a shock when family lambasts you for (dare I say) taking advantage of your liberties. It’s a time of adjustment, hopefully not the same adjustment my Grandfather made on a mule with a 2 by 4 when it wouldn’t pull. (Relax PETA both Grandfather and mule are long gone).
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.
All laws created to strengthened all amendments rights should be highly excepted , and celebrated .
I have said NOTHING .Will someone say that I have said it before………………………………….
Deadly Agenda…
Progressives and leftists have learned one critically important tactic. When they attack your natural and enumerated rights they must first seek and establish victim status for themselves. In that way they can fend off any fact based argument you may present by simply reacting with counter accusations and hyperbole. The ill informed fall in to this trap time and again and never seem to figure it out. And I include in the ill informed the entire republican party, most self appointed conservatives and many gun owners. And why is that, you ask? Simple facts learned from years at left wing… Read more »
Rules for Conservative Radicals is available as a .pdf for free download from WordPress. 94 pages of strategy and tactics.
[Search domain thecentralkentuckypatriot.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/rules-for-conservative-radicals.pdf] https://thecentralkentuckypatriot.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/rules-for-conservative-rad
https://thecentralkentuckypatriot.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/rules-for-conservative-radicals.pdf
So very well stated. The GOP is a mere handshake of the Dems. Progressives are the folks at the higher levels of the same old song in Congress and the people who pull their strings. Yes that is EXACTLY why they seem to hate Trump. I believe it is however more than simply hate. I believe it is FEAR. The outsider non progressive is a threat to their well entrenched hierarchy. This requires them to up the game in disarmament and to run for cover in the long hidden criminal behaviors.
The Leftists would not be hiding behind us. They would be what was known in WWII as collaboraters.
Is AMY from the ANTI-FREEDOM State of Mass.? With her attitude being displayed against LEGAL LAW ABIDING American CITIZENS (not subjects), she has allowed her IGNORANCE of the Constitutional REAFFIRMATION of the RIGHTS of WE the PEOPLE.
She seems to like the right to freedom of speech though, to shoot off that fully automatic mouth.
Do You people still not understand…these left wing nuts are at war with us..they are the most dangerous threat to freedom there can be..short of foreign troops marching on us and then the left would be hiding behind us…give no room for mis communication..and tell it like it is ..antifa is Her hero and we see what that gets us!!!
The article is correct about the comments left to Ms. Dickinson. I read her article and most of the comments left to her by some irate pro gun people. First we had a father whom was upset his daughter owned a .40 caluber semi automatic hand gun loaded with hollow points, which upset the father enough he wanted to ask his daughter to either get rid of the firearm or move. That is where Ms. Dickinson comes in with her advice column. She goes on to explain to the father that hollow point bullets were like tiny grenades, that when… Read more »
This is absolutely right. It is the people that are on our side that can do much more harm to our cause by saying the wrong things in anger or frustion. They are trying to provoke this kind of responses from the pro second amendment side to fuel their argument. I find it very disturbing of how hard the anti gunners are trying to mis inform the public about the facts and figures to be on their side. There needs to be a hard campaign from our side to bring out the facts about a truely informed public about the… Read more »
Eric B. While Harold did get some things correct here, namely the threats issued to Idiot Amy being wrong, He is still a gun control apologist. Do not forget that. Forget the hard campaign. Follow the KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stupid. Stick to the facts, be knowledgable enough to present them without room for doubt, Be ready to use satire against those who blatantly lie against evidence, and always end with the question “How many of us are you willing to murder to force your views on us?” You talk about a flock, but reality is we are dealing… Read more »
I could have written all day long and not stated it as well.thank You revelator
Y`all don`t understand how communism works. communist`s don`t care about reason.They want power,and mean to get it. Private gun ownership stands in the way. Be nice,polite,respectful to a Communist ? You can lick their boots. I will never comply,be nice,respectful,or polite to a Communist. We had a little phrase painted on our cannon in beautiful S.E.Asia. ” Sat Cong “. . One I have painted on my P.U. . Another quite appropriate phrase , I have commented to Communists , is Dhu Mhan Yhu . Now, with that aside, I don`t make threats,but I also don`t try to reason with… Read more »
David C.Telliho I understand it perfectly, also to the point of being able to tell you Communism has never been reached. Every case so far in history has been a Socialist system. Communists view it as pathway to communism, but it always creates tyrants who refuse to give up power creating an endless loop of tyrannical Socialism. If you go back and read my comment, no where did I say be nice or respectful. What I said was stick to the facts. If you want a good example go back through any number of my comments here at ammoland. They… Read more »
Leftist Morons never learn thus the term Leftard.
Well unfortunately we have dopes who aren’t helpful.