“Republican”, “Democrat”, Guns, and Labels

As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed yesterday I came across a posting by the NRA’s official Facebook page that caught my attention. “98.8 percent of mass shootings since 1950 have occurred in gun-free zones. So why are lawmakers opposed to allowing citizens to exercise their Second Amendment right to self-defense?” I immediately shared the article onto Strategic Outfitters’ Facebook page.

I then clicked on the link, expecting to be taken to something on the NRA’s website. Instead I was taken to a third party website with an article titled, “Just One Gun Law Might Stop 98.8% Of Mass Shootings, So Why Do Democrats Oppose It?” I quickly scanned the article finding demeaning reference after demeaning reference to “Democrats”. I immediately deleted the share from our Facebook page…

“Republican” and “Democrat” are very dangerous and imprecise terms. Are they referring to those career liars that tell the voters whatever it takes to get elected and stay elected, while always intending to do whatever is in their own best interest for power and money? Are they referring to the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, the official organizations of the aforementioned liars? Or are they referring to the citizens of the United States that happen to generally vote for Republican or Democratic candidates?

Likewise, don’t use the labels liberal and conservative; they are every bit as dangerous and imprecise as Republican and Democrat. All of these labels seek to pigeon-hole voters into groups that the Republican and Democratic Parties can more easily manipulate for their own ends.

We have friends that would typically be referred to as liberal and Democrats. News Flash: a great many of them are gun owners, including some that are concealed carry license holders! If you don’t know them well, you’d likely never know this as it is taboo. Liberal/Democrat/Progressive politicians have made gun control a hallmark of their campaigns, branding anyone that isn’t in lock step with them as deranged.

Conversely, conservative/Republican politicians paint liberals and Democrats as all hating guns and gun owners.

This binary thinking, them versus us, benefits no one except for the two corrupt political parties that are attempting to lock us into the prison cell of thought control via stereotyping.

Those of us on the pro-gun side need to stop feeding the corrupt political parties’ stereotypes by being precise in our language. If you need to say that the Party elites want to limit or eliminate our right to keep and bear arms, say so. Don’t, however, say that Democrats want to limit our right to keep and bear arms—some, more than we will ever know, actually agree with us and offending them only hurts all of us.

Also, remember that there are plenty of Republican politicians that are willing to trade away our rights in exchange for maintaining/enhancing their power and fortunes…