‘Anonymous Say Something’ Campaign Shares Flaws with ATF’s Snitch Line

Might some of these “signs” have alternative interpretations that don’t warrant being anonymously reported on? (Sandy Hook Promise/Facebook)

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “We all have a responsibility to do something about gun violence,” opinion contributor Mark Barden writes in The Hill. “By speaking up to get help when seeing the potential for violence, we can save lives.”

“Speaking up” how?

“Students nationwide are leading the way,” Barden asserts. “[T]hey will be participating in Say Something Week, celebrating those in the community who are upstanders, who say something when they see warning signs. While lawmakers have failed to address gun violence, these student upstanders are helping their peers feel more connected to one another and their community.”

Barden, founder and CEO of Sandy Hook Promise, has an especially powerful voice in terms of emotional impact. His young son was one of the victims. It’s powerful not only because of the media platform he now has but also because all good people were sickened by the terror and agony the murdered children were forced to endure. We who are parents, and who treasure our children above our own lives, share heartfelt sympathy as we try to fathom the crippling anguish that he must be reliving in every waking moment, and in nightmares that we can only pray we never dream.

Our natural inclination is to want to offer comfort to someone in such pain, and decent people, who can only imagine his loss, loathe fighting back against him even as he’s bringing a fight to us. If we value our rights, though, we have to fight not against the man, but certainly against the citizen disarmament ideology that he represents.

We’re sorry for his loss, but it’s not our fault. It does not give him a claim on our rights, and it does not make the ideas he promulgates above reproach. He doesn’t want our sympathy, he wants our disarmament. And we won’t forget that the murdering monster who was the catalyst, in this case, was enabled by “gun-free” mandates that ensured he would have a defenseless victim pool where no one would be equipped to stop him. That is, until men with guns showed up, at which point the evil freak ended himself.

The “Say Something” campaign Barden is pushing won’t change that. What the slick PR professionals call “student upstanders” is basically another way of saying “informants,” and while there can be times when doing that can be lifesaving and needed, like all tools, it can be used for great good or great evil.

Kind of like guns?

To that end, Sandy Hook Promise has established a reporting system for budding “upstanders,” complete with a phone app and assurances of anonymity. They also include a professionally produced video (with no ability to dislike or comment) to “educate” on “warning signs”:

Forgotten by most is an allegation from Albert Gonzalez Films, where he posted a side-by-side comparison of his original short film from 2011 with Sandy Hook Promise’s “PSA”:

But back to the “Say Something” program. Look at the list of what they want to be reported—there’s plenty of room for subjective interpretation, in terms of what constitutes a “threat,” in term of what constitutes “bragging about weapons,” in terms of what “any other troubling situation or behavior” means, and who is troubled by it… After all, we’ve seen ludicrous and dangerous overreactions like students reported to police over Nerf guns in Zoom calls.

Sandy Hook Promise has a well-funded 24/7 “Crisis Center” to “manage the tips,” meaning if they buy what they’re being told, it won’t stop there. Then there’s the “tip form” that promises “It’s easy and completely confidential to report safety concerns to help prevent violence and tragedies.”

Is it?

Read the fine print:

“NOTE: If you provide your name and/or contact information, you acknowledge that it will be provided to assist in resolving the concern or threat you are reporting. If you deliberately provide false information or use this system to threaten or harass someone, you may be subject to criminal prosecution.”

Great. But if you didn’t provide your name, how would they know? And importantly, if someone used the “Say Something” program to victimize you, how would you know who they are to seek justice (provided you can)?

The comparisons between this and ATF’s “anonymous” tip system show as many similarities as the Sandy Hook Promise PSA and the Gonzales film, and raise the same questions about the potential for abuse, up to and including “swatting,” and relying on anonymity guarantees to get revenge.

“Say something does not [unintelligible] because when you snitch, it’s purposely intending badness upon a person, you want to do this to get them in trouble,” one empathy-exuding Illinois student insists. “But when you say something, you’re doing it to protect everyone including yourself.”

Snitching may not be her intent, but people, especially “progressives” intentionally calling in false tips to score political points is well documented, like what TikTokers did in response to the new abortion law in Texas. Yes, of course, there is a time and place for young people to be responsible citizens and stand up for what’s right, and to help when needed.

The answer is not a compulsory education system that creates a culture of alarmist teenage CIs (confidential informants). That’s especially true among young people indoctrinated into hating and fearing firearms by the predominantly leftist hoplophobes “teaching” them. If the object is to stop school shootings, the only thing that will is the one thing the people pushing “tip lines” reject via evil-enabling Second Amendment-free zones.


About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

David Codrea

David Codrea
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Glypto Dropem

I need to find that hotline number to report Hunter Biden. I mean, he’s a drug addict that bought a gun.

Last edited 1 year ago by Glypto Dropem
Russn8r

Hunter humped his dying brother Beau’s wife & 14-yr-old daughter. But at least the Bidens would NEVER joke about grabbing P-words, right? Getting rid of that bad, bad Trump was totally worth 20% inflation!

TexDad

I don’t know on this one. This appears to be a lightly rebranded “See Something, Say Something” campaign. Those are as old as the hills. The problems with them are the same as always.

Big George

Yep, it left me scratching my head also. My liberal neighbors already scare the C__P out of me and I worry they’ll drop a dime if my dogs are barking too loud at that possum in my backyard. Now I have to worry about their kids too?!

Wild Bill

Just like communism. Perhaps you could think of counter-complaints if they do make false allegations. Make a list of their wrongdoings generally and dates specifically.
Se vis pacem, para bellum.

swmft

call dea leave a tip you saw the kids selling drugs , dueling slap bs see who gets door busted in first

swmft

yea you remember party lines on ma bell? how do you get around wire tap laws a word recognition switch recorder and crossed wires. so truth in government, would be they all lie most of the time

Wild Bill

Funny. I have Granny Clampet’s Possum Recipe Book if you want to borrow it!!

swmft

there is a road kill cook book too

john

Install cameras let your neighbor see them nothing strikes fear into a liberal neighbor like the truth and a video after they lie. I suggest installing one or two that they won’t see, keeps them all honest.

swmft

no they are so stupid they do stuff in front of cameras then up the lie

swmft

the cameras let you catch them, the people that were dumping on my dirt road shown the footage by police said it was not them, police impounded the truck

Boz

“…you may be subject to criminal prosecution.”

** Unless you are a liberaI Dem trying to ruin a Republican’s life, then that is ok.

Russn8r

Or the National Park Service & Los Angeles sheriffs deputies trying to steal someone’s ranch.

gregs

evil has been with us since the beginning, it is a result of attempting to make ourselves a god. this is just another version of that evil. letting your emotions control your life is just going to make you miserable, if you do you will never truly be happy. some of us are animals of higher intellect and use our mental capacity to rise above the state of other animals, which should be the goal of all humans, but some refuse to make that effort. i cannot see this being a good thing, people will use it as a weapon… Read more »

Mack

David,

How ironic — and timely – that you wrote this after you posted this from Virginia. Would the teacher unions approve of this snitch?

Dubi Loo

I seem to remember tattle tales had a nose as long as a telephone wire.

bondmen

Snitches get stiches doesn’t appear to work for Feral Government sponsored sites receiving anonymous ‘tips’, so how can grievous, undeserved, unwarranted surveillance and suffering at the hands of nefarious actors ever be corrected? And think of it, one doesn’t even have to be a CCP member in good standing to effectuate punishment on one’s despised opposition!

Last edited 1 year ago by bondmen
Wild Bill

I like that … the Feral Government. Highly accurate.

john

Biden is aiding and abetting criminals by letting illegals come into our country and then flying them all over the United States in the middle of the night. This alone should be enough to impeach Biden adding a lawsuit against the Federal government for violation of those States sovereignty. Our Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good or bad intentions of corrupt politicians today they are using the lower courts and government run agencies to fundamentally altar are rights. Biden lost the support of most people paying attention to current events when he claimed that the Afghan… Read more »

buzzsaw

I went to your link to look up our “favorite” agency and found two: the Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade, with the Treasury Department, and our beloved BATFE (and sometimes Really Big Fires) now with the Justice Department. The former appears to be involved with what it says it is. The latter says nothing about alcohol and tobacco in its brief description. Hmmm…I wasn’t aware of the existence of the first, and it does appear that the latter now has no constitutional duties at all.

swmft

the atf became obsolete with repeal of prohibition
but the government goon-squad it created would not go

Last edited 1 year ago by swmft
Wild Bill

Yes, this is well documented in the book “Unintended Consequences” by John Ross. The book is well worth the cost just for the history that it documents that our governments do not want anyone to remember.

Laddyboy

The GOON-SQUAD = the IRS with its director that started the AFT(biden) with a directive, which Congress NEVER AUTHORIZED the formation of the ATF BUREAUCRACY!

buzzsaw

The firearms and explosives part has been unconstitutional since 1791, and therefore obsolete, before it even existed.

Goon squad is a very apt description.

swmft

most? like none. government needs to shrink back to manageable size and cost

Wild Bill

The marxists, now in control, are screwing things up so bad and so fast that we will not be able to put things right for the next ten presidencies.

swmft

think it took two terms of Reagan ,and one bush to turn around damage from jimmy the smiling idiot , first thing clinton did was trash economy

Wild Bill

Today’s criminal and diseased illegal aliens are tomorrow’s democrat voters from home.
How can working families compete with illegal aliens, whose every need is paid for by the Biden Administration?

Rodoeo

A kid dies in my area DAILY from fentanyl.. a DIRECT result of open border policy. It’s downright SICK.

swmft

they are imparting the basis for a comunist state….I smelled meat cooking coming from so and so and so’s house and it was friday

Wild Bill

Or maybe … just eat on the odd numbered days. We are talking socialism, here.

Wild Bill

Definitely two justice systems.

swmft

at least 2 injustice systems , you have as much freedom as you can buy

swmft

and you cant buy food on day you can drive and gas rations are only good days station in your area is closed