Reason #43 gun controllers fail: They believe their own PR

[friendly_iconoclast]

I saw this over at the Palace of Ideological Purity:

"Can the US gun lobby be made to misfire through social media?"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12626033

It got three recommendations. Intrigued, I followed the link to the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/08/us-gun-lobby-social-media-nra

The discerning reader will notice several things wrong with this 'Strength Through Networking'
opus:

Can the US gun lobby be made to misfire through social media?

Three campaigning groups tell SXSW how they’re using social media to take on the NRA and others

(The fact that they chose a music festival in Texas, of all places, speaks volumes...)

Gun control campaigners are making greater use of social media to organise their supporters across the US, in an effort to digitally disrupt better-funded pro-gun lobbying groups like the NRA.

(Wot? Either their founder and sixteenth richest person in the world
http://www.forbes.com/profile/michael-bloomberg/
isn't coming through for them- or someone is lying...)

Three groups – Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Americans for Responsible Solutions, and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America – came together at the SXSW conference in Austin to discuss their digital strategies.

The first two of those groups may have well-known figureheads – politicians Michael Bloomberg and Gabrielle Giffords respectively – but they are also working hard to spark grassroots online campaigns for supporters to press for changes to state and federal gun laws.

(Only a rude base toter winger would be so churlish as to point out that they are outnumbered
ca. 20:1 by the NRA- and the NRA costs money to join, while the controller groups are free...)

“The problem here is that there are more guns in the United States than there are people. That’s not necessarily a problem in itself, but our laws are letting far too many of those guns fall into the wrong hands,” said Glaze, setting the scene for the groups’ digital efforts...

The eleven people watching that didn't exactly seem fired up with enthusiasm:

"The gun control panel at SXSW"



The prohibitionists should be careful they don't dislocate something patting themselves on the back

[gejohnston]

1. Monsanto Mom was kind enough to pose for a pic

and was kind of miffed when she found out who it was.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/03/daniel-zimmerman/incendiary-image-day-ankle-holster-edition/
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/03/daniel-zimmerman/gun-tweet-of-the-day-tangled-web-edition/

[geckosfeet]

2. Classic. Just classic.

[friendly_iconoclast]

4. You'd think Watts would be better at explaining away toxins by now...

[friendly_iconoclast]

3. Oh, my. That lot don't seem to handle actual interaction with non-genuflecting

members of the public very well, do they?

[friendly_iconoclast]

5. Watts neglected to mention Monsanto in the publicity for that:

http://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_IAP22663

Shannon Watts
Founder
Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America

Shannon Watts is a 43-year-old mother of five children (two step-daughters, 23 and 19; two daughters, 18 and 17; and a 13-year-old son). For the past five years, Ms. Watts has been a stay-at-home mom in Zionsville, a suburb of Indianapolis, Indiana. Prior to that, she had a 15-year career as a communications executive for both public relations agencies and Fortune 500 corporations.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/shannontroughton

Shannon Watts

Founder at Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America

Indianapolis, Indiana Area
Public Relations and Communications

Past

Freelance Senior Consultant/Counselor at Fleishman-Hillard
Founder and President at VoxPop Public Relations
Vice President, Corporate Communications at WellPoint
Director, Global Communications at GE Healthcare
Director, Global Public and Corporate Affairs at Monsanto

[krispos42]

6. Can I say it often enough?

People that don't own guns and have no intention of doing so have to do absolutely nothing to continue to do so.

People that do own guns and intend to keep doing so find themselves getting involved politically and financially to continue to do so.

Some gun-control measures, whether symbolic or real, have fairly wide but shallow support from the gun-control side, and somewhat narrower but much deeper support from the gun-rights side.

[rrneck]

7. The whole thing is designed

for armchair ideologues to talk to themselves and pay somebody else for the subject matter.

[Eleanors38]

8. The controllers are elites who talk to other elites.

In a sense, Watts is doing what gun-control groups have always done because of a lack of grass roots organization or millions of small donors, and because there is virtually no activism. To this they have added a ramped up smear campaign (seen daily on DU) at comparatively high levels within both MSM and entertainment circles.

The "alternative" weekly the Austin Chronicle (whose principals founded SXSW) have a pretty standard-issue MSM anti-gun bent, which may explain the Bloomberg presence in Austin.