2020 Election ‘About Three Things’ and Gun Rights is One of Them

By Dave Workman | Senior Editor

The 2020 election is about three things and one of those issues is gun rights, according to Beth Baumann, associate editor at Townhall.com.

She was one of four panelists discussing the gun rights battle from a media perspective at the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Phoenix. According to Baumann, the other two subjects that will be campaign issues next year are abortion and “Medicare for all.”

But gun rights are in the crosshairs since Democrat “Beto” O’Rourke declared “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR15, your AK47!” For those who attended the Phoenix conference, that was a watershed moment where the entire country saw, from the silence of O’Rourke’s fellow Democrats, that this idea of forced gun confiscations is a reality anti-gunners have been concealing for many years.

According to Baumann, “This is about more than carrying a piece of metal for protection. This is about rights.”

She said the current gun control push is “about taking our choice” and “shredding the constitution.” And Baumann lamented that some Republicans in Congress “are chickens” when it comes to resisting extremist gun control efforts.

Baumann asked the audience what they are personally doing to make sure that the election is not “given over to anti-gunners.” She suggested that some candidates want to “shred our constitution.”
Joining Baumann on the panel was Stephen Gutowski, a writer at the Washington Free Beacon. He challenged the audience to make a difference by helping reporters understand the firearms issue.

He offered some advice on interacting with reporters, and becoming a “go-to” source for information on firearms.

He admitted that if he were in front of a room full of reporters, he would be advising them to work harder at getting their facts correct. He said a lot of his time is spent helping other reporters get their stories right.

“All you need is the desire and a little bit of knowledge,” he suggested.

Gutkowski acknowledged that the process can be frustrating, but he also noted that most hard news reporters want to get their stories right. They want to be accurate.

“Offer to take them to a range and explain how these guns work,” he advised. “Most of them didn’t grow up around guns. You can help. You can be that person. Be a resource and you can really have a bigger impact.”

“It’s not totally hopeless,” he assured.

AWR Hawkins, a writer at Breitbart.com, began by leading the audience in a cheering exercise before getting down to basics. He identified five phrases that are used by the establishment media to “slowly put shame on you.” Those phrases are “the gun lobby,” “assault weapons ban,” “Charleston loophole,” “Private gun sale loophole,” and “gun show loophole.”

The establishment media invented the phrase “full semi-automatic,” he remarked.

“These people don’t know what they’re talking about,” Hawkins maintained. “But they don’t care. Their goal is to scare you and scare me.”

How the media describes the “gun lobby” encompasses all gun groups, not just the National Rifle Association. Hawkins asserted that instead of explaining that the mission of gun organizations is to defend the Second Amendment, the media intimates that they are fighting against firearms safety and the safety of children. He said “their attempt to smear gun groups is particularly loathsome.”

He further contended that the homicide numbers go up primarily because of the slayings in some major cities that also practice strict gun control. Laws the anti-gunners have instituted have not worked, he maintained.

Hawkins further criticized the media for portraying the “gun lobby” as dumping huge amounts of money into political campaigns when in reality they have been outspent in recent election cycles by the gun control lobby.

“One of the first things we do when we deal with the establishment media,” he advised, “is reject what they’re saying, because it’s not true.”

Wrapping up this panel was nationally-syndicated radio host Mark Walters from Armed American Radio. He is a board member of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

He recalled an incident in Chicago in which a cab driver explained how she enjoyed firearms and shooting, except for “those assault rifles.” He spent several minutes changing her opinion on that.

Walters said media bias taints public perceptions about gun owners and rights groups. He suggested that the public perspective would change if the mainstream media would alter its message by telling about how firearms are used in self-defense, and how responsible gun owners can protect themselves.

Keeping his remarks brief, Walters contended that people draw their rhetoric from the “legacy media” and that the bias is “what we’re up against.”

 

Culture Drives Gun Politics

 

From battling media misrepresentations, the discussion shifted to another panel that addressed how culture drives politics.

Chris Cheng, the History Channel’s Top Shot Season 4 champion and an LGBT advocate, related how he became a shooter and AR15 owner. He expressed gratitude about how he was welcomed into the shooting community as a gay, and he suggested there is a parallel between gay rights and gun rights.

He left a job in the tech industry to pursue a career in the shooting community and was “pleasantly surprised” about his acceptance as a gay gun owner.

“For us, it’s about freedom and protecting our Second Amendment rights,” Cheng said. “It’ about being out and being vocal.”

And that brought him around to discussing the recent decision by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to label the NRA a “terrorist organization.”

“I’m a life member of the NRA,” he noted. “What is happening here is that the government does not agree with the Second Amendment or the citizens and residents of San Francisco that do agree. They applied the terrorist label to suppress my First Amendment rights to defend my Second Amendment rights, and that to me sounds like tyranny.”

He asked rhetorically what tyranny looks like, and pointed the finger at the San Francisco municipal government, to a round of applause.

Following Cheng to the podium was Andrew Gottlieb, director of Outreach for the Second Amendment Foundation and 2A Gaming.

He explained what the 2A gaming program is all about, noting that about 65 percent of adults enjoy video games and 60 percent of them are active in politics. Half of them play games that revolve around firearms. He estimated that there are about 48 million people to whom 2A Gaming can reach out, and “change the attack on gun culture.”

He said this will allow the firearms community to expand its base “and have fun doing it.”

“For a lot of people, video games are their first and only interaction with firearms,” Gottlieb observed. “It’s our job to encourage that relationship.”

He said the Second Amendment should not be an issue decided along party lines. It should not matter who is president for people to worry whether their gun rights are safe.

In August, he reminded the audience, those video gamers were told they were part of a culture responsible for the violent acts committed by one individual. He compared gamers to gun owners whose rights are penalized. He said the problem in the firearms community was that the gamers were ignored when that happened, and unfortunately a lot of those folks have been turning against guns.

2A Gaming is aimed at spreading the gun rights message to video gamers. He said 2A Gaming will be live streaming on YouTube and the project will be operating soon.

“This project is going to help us get younger,” he said. “It’s going to grow and we’re going to have a lot more fun sharing why we like guns to everybody else. We are going to help shift the culture war so that we are not on the losing end.”

Gene Hoffman, co-founder and chair of the California Gun Rights Foundation, told the audience “We’re winning.” He cited the appeals court vacancies that are being filled by President Trump.

Hoffman, who works in San Francisco, returned to the problem there where he is branded a “terrorist.” He also alluded to O’Rourke, telling the audience that when such things happen, they need to respond.

“The truth is,” Hoffman said, “he’s the weirdo. This guy has decided that he does not want to be elected in Texas.

“I want us to change the way we talk,” he continued, “the way we promote what we’re doing.”

However, because gun owners have been under attack for four decades, “we kind of act like we’re the victim. We’re not. We’re the majority.”

His advice is to not be on the defensive, and to be self-reliant, rather than worry about personal safety after some natural disaster, such as an earthquake.

“It is time for us to use that truth to invite people to open up,” Hoffman said. “Be the person willing to stand up at your office…and say ‘Yeah, I’m a gun owner, it’s great.’”

“it is time for us to take the attitude of winners,” he insisted.

Next up was Declan McCullagh, an entrepreneur talked about apparent social media bias. This can suppress speech, he indicated, which can be self-defeating for social media because it will result in shrinking audiences and that affects ad revenue.

He has launched a new site called “Talking.” It’s on Beta. This site has no advertising and it does encourage discussion.

Participants can post links to news articles, and when the site is out of Beta later this year it will expand its scope. The only rule being enforced now is that when someone talks about media bias, it needs to be tagged “Media jackal.”

Lara Smith national spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club, assured the audience that there are liberal gun owners. She said SAF is inclusive, and she said the message of her group is that gun ownership is normal.

There are about 10,000 members of the gun club now and they are expanding.

“I love to shoot,” she declare

d. “I want to go talk to those other people.”

She said that she was not at the conference to support her spouse, but to protect her rights. As an attorney, she recalled what it was like in this country 60 years ago, and she vowed that she is “never going back.”

When she talks about guns, she talks about having fun, and being safe. This gets the message through to non-gun owners, and she invites people to the gun range to learn about firearms safety firsthand.

Smith detailed how she works with new shooters, and encourages them to become comfortable with firearms.

“We have to talk about overcoming legitimate fear,” she explained. “Find a way to make it not scary. Bring those people in.”

She said this is the way to expand the number of gun owners, and told the crowd, “This is how we’re going to win.”