by For a Brit, Charles C. W. Cooke of the National Review gets it on gun control and gun rights. Maybe because his native land has so eviscerated any semblance of gun rights, Cooke is more aware of what is at stake than many Americans. In an article published yesterday in the National Review, he takes on what he calls the “terminal vagueness” of Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors. When he asks both a Demanding Mommies volunteer and Everytown Communications Director Erika Soto Lamb a direct question regarding whether they support a new AWB or mag restrictions, he gets evasiveness. While one would assume that they would have no problem supporting both of those restrictions, they don’t want to go on record.
Cooke concludes that the gun prohibitionists have a problem with being too specific about their intentions and it carries over to their “branding”.
While the National Rifle Association has maintained its name and branding since it was founded in 1871, the gun-control movement has gone through names and outfits faster than Prince. Before market research informed its leadership that words matter, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence was named first the “National Council to Control Handguns” and then “Handgun Control Inc.” — both of which titles are nice and descriptive but, alas, leave little room for ambiguity. This, evidently, will not do. In a fight in which deception has become paramount — who honestly believes that Everytown would not support an assault-weapons ban? — vocabulary has become king and euphemism indispensable. Gun “control” has thus become gun “safety”; restrictions on ownership have become “gun-violence prevention”; and hard policy has been subordinated to woolly platitude. Michael Bloomberg may have rebranded his effort, but he has not yet managed to stop the truth getting out, nor to prevent his more moderate supporters from recognizing the ruse and bolting. And “a hog in a silk waistcoat,” as Charles Spurgeon famously quipped, is ultimately “still a hog.”
