Unconcealed Uneasiness
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Fear is effective and entertaining. If you don’t believe people are amused by fear, just watch any Hollywood horror film or a presidential primary.
In my book Shooting The Bull, a handy guide on propaganda analysis, of the 71 forms of fibs, lies, canards, casuistry, flummery, tergiversation, artifice and tarradiddle, the Lie of Fear was foremost. Candidates rely on scaring people into polling booths – to cast with trembling hands votes for candidates that panicked them the most about the other candidates. Pundits, politicos and other disreputable sorts do the same, as witnessed by entirely entertaining attempts from the entrenched left to argue against the ascendancy of a conservative black republican.
In 1988 the state of Florida (a.k.a. America’s Retirement Home) dared to dismiss an ongoing fear campaign orchestrated by Barack Obama’s own Joyce Foundation, wherein they portrayed guns as evil and gun owners as lunatics. In an era where only 10 states permitted people to carry firearms concealed, Florida decided to expand that cluster by one. Professional fear mongers descended upon the state like a flock of ugly and voracious Turkey Vultures (which, come to think upon it, would be a good nickname for lobbyists). Yet the “Gunshine State” elected to permit packing, which ignited a chain reaction throughout most of the other states. Today, 42 states allow some form of concealed carrying without discrimination aside from disallowing felons the option.
Barack Obama’s Illinois is the only state that denies any form of concealed carry.
Interestingly, the progressive notion of citizens concealing cannons caused many folks to fear … for a while. Once a state enacted concealed carry legislation and carnage failed to come, fear subsided. A recent Gallup Poll indicates that the number of people favoring stricter gun control is at an all time low while gun ownership is at an all time high (and I’ll note most working criminologists believe that strangers calling people’s homes and asking if they own a gun produces artificially low response rates). The chart (click to beef up) illustrates that as states converted to the controversial condition of condoning concealed carry, it slowly quit being controversial because nobody feared their fellow residents.
Well, criminals did.
One counter argument posed to fear mongering Joyce Foundation flunkies was that the uncertainty principle of people packing pistols would cause common criminals to think twice. In no-carry states such as Illinois, any garden variety thug can mug ATM patrons without fear of catching a bullet. That class of criminal is much rarer in Texas or the 41 other states that do not deny concealed carry to commoners. Indeed, criminologists expected violent crime to start rising in 2001 as the percentage of the population composed of young males (who typically are the ones prone to violent stupidity) grew. This failed to occur because by that time citizens in more than 31 states kept cons second guessing.
Fear is rapidly becoming a weak tool. When the citizens’ media took over the national conversation from the mainstream variety, fear’s short shelf life shrank. With luck, fear mongering will be useless in our life time.
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