Den Beste notes the CSM noticing gun bloggers...

... and takes on Brian Anse Patrick:

“Common sense”?  What an arrogant prick. Who says that it’s “common sense” that more gun control is better?

Besides which, he’s being redundant.  His “conventional wisdom” and “elite opinion” are the same thing, because it’s clear he thinks “conventional wisdom” comes from the elite.  It was never “conventional wisdom” among the masses that more gun control was a thing to be desired.

Early on, the RKBA folks were forced to argue uphill, against elite opinion reinforced by media bias and ignorance.  In a classic example of “what does not kill me makes me stronger,” they had to refine their arguments, back them up with facts, and make their case to the uninvolved one-at-a-time, with no help (indeed, with hostility) from the establishment press.  Meanwhile the “established experts” on the gun-control side had their often-erroneous “conventional wisdom” and sloppy arguments accepted without question by a complaisant press and political establishment.

It’s easy– and incomplete– to say the change in the legal climate was “all because of the internet.”  Easy, because the effects of the internet are obvious: A self-organized interest/advocacy community, wide availability of hard data and scholarly opinion, and the ability to “route around” the established gatekeepers and agenda-setters.  Incomplete, because it ignores the fact that the National Rifle Association was already an important political force at the time the internet was just getting started.

Out of necessity, the NRA’s political action was mostly reactive, although vital: By monitoring congressional performance and reporting it to its members, the NRA made it politically dangerous to vote for new gun control measures.  But once the NRA’s clout had been demonstrated, the MSM scrambled to paint it as a bunch of “gun nuts” (meanwhile accepting without question the latest statements from the Brady Campaign).

But then came the internet, and, IMO, its most important consequence, which Den Beste nicely nails in one of the comments:

...the dissolution of anti-gun peer pressure. When you can get online and find hundreds or thousands of other people who, like you, feel guns should not be banned and who, unlike you, are vocal about it and unashamed, it becomes easier to become vocal yourself and to stop being ashamed of what you think.

And that applied to scholars, intellectuals, and law professors, not just ordinary citizens. As the internet overthrew the MSM’s characterizations, RKBA advocates discovered that they weren’t some scattering of wackos, but members of a large body of normal citizens whose thoughts, feelings, and opinions on this issue were largely in agreement. By creating legitimacy, the internet made it easier for RKBA to make the transition from being a defensive, holding movent to being a pro-active one.  And thanks to their prior baptism of fire, its members already had the legal, logical, and political arguments that would defeat the anti-gunners.

Perhaps there’s a lesson for conservatives here.


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Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 17:41:14 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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