The Difference Between Us And Them

I had an email the other day from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Gun Violence Solutions. They were offering a “toolkit” on advocating for so-called “safe storage.” There were some things that just jumped out at me in their email.

While I am sure it was unintentional on their part, this email illustrated the stark differences between the Astroturf of the gun control industry and the actual grass roots of the pro-rights movement.

They have shareable social media graphics. We develop our own memes and graphics.

They have “pre-written social media posts” which I am sure they have run by focus groups. We, by contrast, write our own social media posts including tweets, blogs, and Instagram posts.

They have “talking points”. We speak our minds.

In terms of real-world solutions to protect kids, it is the gun rights movement that does the heavy lifting. Whether it is the NRA’s Eddie Eagle program for children, the NSSF’s Project Childsafe locks, or an independent group like Kids S.A.F.E. Foundation, it is us doing the training and providing the tools. We don’t have to rebadge Project Childsafe gun locks like gun control front groups.

If the gun control industry were actually serious about providing safe storage they would be pushing for tax credits for safes and lockboxes. Moreover, these tax credits for safes and lockboxes would have a fairly high annual cap of say $5,000 with the ability to rollover expenses from one year to the next. In other words, if you spent $6,000 on a safe and/or lockboxes this year, you would get a $5,000 credit this tax year and could rollover the extra $1,000 to the next tax year.

Frankly, economic solutions usually have a better outcome than the nagging one gets from the gun control industry.

You can see their whole “toolkit” below.