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By William Lolli

In the past year special interests, the media, and politicians have been successful in taxing and regulating tobacco manufacturers and users. The portrayal images government as savior against a killer substance left in the hands of a mindless, addicted public and unscrupulous corporate industry.
 
The results have been completely successful: Government on all levels will soon be awash in new tax revenues; socialist liberals and well-meaning moderates feel venerated and are empowered to "do more"; the media is happy in feeling that they have done some good in protecting the public; bureaucrats have more money and the power to expand their agencies; the killer-substance has not been banned outright, therefore allowing the parasites to not kill their very productive host.
 
The losers of course are those who value free enterprise, personal responsibility, and liberty. 
 
The special-interests and politicians who desire to neuter the 2nd Amendment have observed carefully the successes of the broad-based anti-tobacco alliances and have marveled with envy at how simple it all has been.
 
Now the stage is set. Frustrated by years of legislative failure to convince the public that they are "in danger" from "gun violence", it is now time to turn the attention against the killer-device, the gun.
 
In the guise of consumer protection, the anti-gun special-interests, the media, and politicians will launch a coordinated taxing and regulating scheme against the manufacturers and users of guns. 
 
The portrayal will again image government as savior against a killer-device that the mindless public owns in every home. Just as in the tobacco alliance portrayal, the unscrupulous corporate industry will be the gun manufacturers. Merchants of death, they will be called, selling devices whose only function is to kill.
 
Same old anti-gun propaganda, you say? Not really.
 
This time the approach will be just like the anti-tobacco alliance of government, the media, and interests-all of whom see a monetary benefit to the regulation and taxation of gun owners, the gun dealers, the gun distributors, and gun manufacturers.
 
The solutions to protect the public will encompass a wide-sweeping range of designer-legislation created to tax and regulate the killer-product from its cradle to its grave.
 
Consider the serialization of all parts and their construction; government inspection and regulation of the manufacturing processes; government regulation of the transportation of any device to any person or entity; the licensing for ownership of any device; the licensing and limits placed for use on necessities like ammunition.
 
The list is endless, and therefore, so is the capacity for taxation and regulation.
 
The anti-gunners have given up on repealing the 2nd Amendment. But what about making manufacturing or owning a gun so stigmatized, so taxed, and so regulated that nobody would want to own one in the first place? It's a great idea and it has worked with tobacco.
 
Just as there will be tobacco-funded anti-tobacco education, why not gun-funded anti-gun education for children? It's perfect. 
 
So, what can we DO about?
 
I am convinced that this fight must be met head-on. What made the tobacco assault successful was that tobacco users and the tobacco industry had no unified alliance of their own. Additionally, the use of tobacco is not an enumerated right, whereas possession of arms is an individual liberty written into the Constitution.
 
What must happen is that the firearm industry and all of the 2nd Amendment interest groups must unify against the anti-gun alliance. By this I mean that if the anti-gun alliance is successful in a lawsuit, there must be an immediate, unified response.
 
Say for example, the City of Chicago wins a class-action lawsuit against gun manufacturers in which the city itself was a plaintiff. That city should be banned from being sold any firearms from any manufacturer, distributor, or FFL dealer. 
 
This action would force the city to procure for its police "devices of death" from another government source or other city. Then immediately file a class-action lawsuit against the city for representative fraud in winning the previous lawsuit. 
 
At the same time, launch a media campaign attacking the city politicians as self-serving and not caring about the safety of the streets by insisting that the police enforce the laws without guns.
 
The tobacco industry failed to "turn the tables" with successful follow-through publicity. The one time the tobacco industry was successful was against the president's and congress' national bill; in which they successfully launched anti-tax ads on radio and television. And they won, despite high, anti-smoke public sentiment.
 
The public has been generally propagandized into believing that gun owners are extremists. In the same manner, the pro-gun alliances must propagandize and litigate that the anti-gun crowd are self-serving bureaucrats, who want to leave our streets in the hands of gangs, crooks, and an unarmed police force. 
 
All of which is true, but these truths have never been fully exploited.
 
In summation, consider the tobacco-scam's benefits and how we could counter them:
 
1) Benefit: Government on all levels obtains new tax revenues; Respond with: Anti-tax and spend message. Appeal to fiscal conservatives and moderates.
 
2) Benefit: Socialist liberals and well-meaning moderates feel venerated and are empowered to "do more"; Respond with: The message that our cities and streets are less-safe now that government has helped criminals obtain more guns, the police fewer guns, and the public NO guns.
 
3) Benefit: The media is happy in feeling that they have done some good in protecting the public; Respond with: The message (or paid ads) depicting the story is one sided. The media hates being considered by the public as "unfair and biased". Portray them that way until you have a chance to air the pro-gun view. 
 
4) Benefit: Bureaucrats have more money and the power to expand their agencies; the killer-substance has not been banned outright, therefore allowing the parasites to not kill their very productive host. Respond with: Propaganda of an uncaring, unfeeling, mindless government agency that is self-serving and doesn't care if people are dying in the streets. Appeal to fiscal conservatives and moderates while portraying the expansion of a bureaucracy and over-regulation as anti-freedom.

 
How to respond to typical Media Questions:

Q:  Well, what about all those gun-related injuries that cost the taxpayers millions each year?
A:  Counter with emotion and facts: What gun-related injuries? The ones received by criminals when they are shot by law enforcement officers during the commission of a crime, and the taxpayers have to foot the bill at the local hospital?

Q: No. Accidental shootings.
A: To whom? What group? Hunters and sportsman? More people are hurt playing golf than hunting.

Q: No. In the home.
A: Compared with other injurious accidents in the home that require taxpayer funded hospitalization? Like what? More people fall off of step-stools than shoot themselves each year.

Q:  What about all those children that are killed each year by gun related injuries?
A: Counter with emotion and facts: A lady went up to Governor Ventura and said that she was an unwed mother and her live-in boy-friend left town; and what was HE going to do about it? He said, Lady, I am not the father of your child and I didn't decide to sleep with him. He put the responsibility right where it belonged-back on her and her actions. Any parent who leaves a loaded gun around the house for a child to play with is guilty of criminal negligence. Every public school should have an Eddie Eagle gun-education program which is proven to be 100% effective EVERY time it has been used: Stop, Don't Touch, Leave The Area, Tell an Adult.

Q:  There are many consumer goods that are regulated. Guns are deadly. Why shouldn't they be regulated?
A: Counter with emotion and facts:  They ARE regulated. (By SAMMI) And how did you know that guns were deadly? Did somebody TELL you? Do you own a gun? (they answer no). Then how did you know that they were deadly? Does it take a government agency to place warning stickers (there already are warning stickers) to un-do the knowledge that you already have that if you put a gun to your face and squeeze the trigger it will go off?

Q: But what about people who can't read?
A: Counter with emotion and facts:  You mean like the American pioneers of the Old West? The Native Americans of the Old West who used guns to defend themselves? The Armenians shortly after World War I? People in Africa today? Who are you talking about? Again, you have to be pretty stupid to not know that a gun is deadly. Why have the government spend millions of dollars on warning labels, PSAs, and new salaries for bureaucrats to tell the public what we already know? This is another $600 government toilet seat that we don't need.
 

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