The morning opened with a panel discussion of gun rights and the Internet, and how activists can use the web to spread the truth about gun ownership.
Malia Zimmerman, president of HawaiiReporter.com, told activists that the press in Hawaii is “very corrupt.” She said rarely do reporters tell the “other side of the story” about guns and crime, and they tend not to discuss the positive aspects of gun ownership, especially by women as a deterrent to rape.She said the “alternative media” can “give the other side of the story.”
Her website gets upwards of 15,000 visits daily, and that translates into a powerful punch.
“Shine the light on what the real facts are, and get out the truth,” she said.
Guy Smith, author of a book called Gun Facts 4.0, said the Internet is “the single most powerful communication medium ever devised by man.”
Each activist with a computer has the power to communicate with the whole world, he noted. His advice to activists who want to use the Internet to spread their message was simple. He said they must say something interesting, be timely, be succinct and to the point, and view each message as something someone might want to forward to someone else.
It is important to present one’s arguments and positions in a “sane, articulate and peaceful” manner, Smith added. He also advised activists to “engage reporters” and start a dialogue so that a reporter might come to recognize them as level-headed, and good sources of information.
“Use that power wisely,” he said, “but use it every day.”
Dan Gifford, a journalist and Academy Award nominee, said that almost everyone he knows in California is a “super liberal.” He advised the audience to “do no more than one mailing a day” on gun rights information if they start a website. That way, recipients will not become confused when they forward the messages on to their own chat groups.
Illegal Immigration
The next discussion focused on illegal immigration, crime and terrorism, and how these problems directly influence gun legislation and help erode American gun rights.
CCRKBA Chairman and SAF founder Alan Gottlieb detailed how illegal aliens contribute to the crime problem in the United States. He recently started a campaign through the CCRKBA focusing on Border Control, Not Gun Control. He said the organization has printed hundreds of thousands of bumper stickers that demand “Control Borders, Not Guns.” Response to that campaign has been phenomenal, but the organization still has plenty of bumper stickers available.
The plan is to flood the White House with mail and telephone calls demanding that the government change its focus from gun control to border control.
Gottlieb revealed polling data done for SAF by the Zogby organization that showed 75% of likely voters do not believe that banning guns would reduce the terrorist threat, while only 20% agree with that idea.
In another poll, commissioned in September, Zogby found that 70% of the respondents believe that border control is more important to national security than gun control, while 23% feel gun control is more important.
“That tells us that we have a baseline of 20 to 25% of the people who hate guns, no matter what,” Gottlieb observed.
Gun Week Senior Editor Dave Workman then told the audience his experience with an investigation the newspaper did last spring that revealed that federal and state law enforcement agencies do not specifically track crimes committed by illegal aliens. In fact, the newspaper learned, many local governments have adopted “sanctuary” policies that prevent police from even asking criminal suspects their citizenship status or their country of residence.
He said that one source estimates that the country spends upwards of $1.6 billion annually to house illegal aliens in the nation’s prisons.
“We have to pay to house these people and prosecute them,” he stated. “I don’t see why we just don’t close the borders and not let these guys in.”
Acknowledging that the problem of illegal immigration is not going to disappear until it is addressed seriously, Workman stated, “We can’t stop a flood that is coming in from the Gulf of Mexico, but we can stop a flood of illegal immigration that includes criminals coming into our country to commit crimes that we are going to have to pay for, politically and financially.”
Closing the discussion, Gottlieb revealed that many politicians who strenuously oppose the creation of a database on illegal aliens are the same people who support expanding the database for background checks on American citizens wanting to purchase firearms.
He called this the supreme hypocrisy.
‘Hoplophobia’
Author Alan Korwin made a short presentation on “hoplophobia,” the morbid fear of firearms. He noted that people involved in the Border Watch and Minuteman programs now on the borders are exercising their First Amendment rights of assembly, and free speech: using cell phones to communicate with one another and with law enforcement to report illegal border crossings.
Focusing on firearms, he told listeners that “we’ve got to win on the language.” He said hoplophobes are “terrified of guns.” He likened it to a medical condition that “needs a cure.”
He then launched into a series of sarcasms, suggesting that all public officers be screened for hoplophobia, and that those who suffer from the malady should never be permitted to set gun policies.
He said the medical community does not yet recognize hoplophobia as a genuine malady, so he suggested that gun rights activists ask their doctors what they think about it. Pretty soon, he predicted, the medical community will be paying attention.