Deceptive Petition: Falsely Claiming Gun Owner Support for Infringements

by David Codrea
More like “Aim for suckering gun owners into supporting infringements…” (97Percent/Facebook)

U.S.A. – “97Percent Advocacy Launches Campaign That Gives Voice to Gun Owners in the Conversation on Gun Safety,” an email from the Astroturf gun control group posing as an honest broker on gun issues claims.

“Aim for Change is a petition for gun owners who support research-based gun safety laws that reduce gun-related homicides and suicides and keep America safe, while respecting our right to bear arms,” the email continues. “Our campaign features a digital and printable petition in the form of a shooting range target for gun owners to sign – with gun fire [sic].”

Listen to what they’re saying: They can uphold the Second Amendment and infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms at the same time. Calling that a paradox would be polite. Calling it a lie would be more on point.

And the virtual shooting range? That’s for shallow morons who think the issue is about guns. It’s not. It’s about freedom. If enjoying shooting was all it took, we’d have no better pals than Lon Horiuchi and “skeet/trap shooter” David Hogg.

But wait. There’s more:

“Aim for Change gives gun owners a tangible way to voice support,” said 97Percent Co-Founder Adam Miller. “Our research clearly shows the majority of gun owners support key gun safety reforms, but they feel left out of the conversation. Aim for Change is a way to unite gun owners, as well as demonstrate to non-gun owners, the media, and legislators that this issue is not nearly as divisive as it is made out to be.”

We’ve all seen such claims before, and the genesis for “popularizing” them goes back to a 2015 press release from the Center for American Progress claiming “83 percent of gun owners nationally support criminal background checks on all sales of firearms, while only 14 percent of gun owners oppose them. There is strong bipartisan agreement on the issue, with 90 percent of Democrat and 81 percent of Republican gun owners in support of background checks. Additionally, 72 percent of NRA members support them.”

As long as we’re talking background checks, let’s look at CAP’s. It was founded by John Podesta, Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff and the head of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. It gets its money from, among other well-heeled leftist sources, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

As for the gun owner/NRA member “statistics,” those were pattoted in a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics paper that begins with the caveat:

“The article below is a product of the Harvard Political Review. Review articles and viewpoints expressed are written and edited exclusively by Review undergraduate students, not the staff of Harvard’s Institute of Politics.”

Undergrads. And no doubt still dependents on parents and grants, and able to afford “liberal” views. Cartoonist Al Capp pretty much had their politics pegged.

And the “poll” they’re relying on? The whole thing is designed to produce divide-and-conquer results and alienate gun owners from the NRA (back before Wayne LaPierre and NRA management decided to take that task on for themselves). The questions relevant to the claims distill down to:

  • Are you a gun owner?
  • Are you an NRA member?
  • How do you identify politically?
  • Do you support or oppose requiring a criminal background check on every person who wants to buy a firearm?

Understand that there’s really no way to validate the answers. If a stranger called you up and asked if you owned guns, what would you say? Also, the poll claims 24% of respondents said they were NRA members. If that were accurate, and if the poll really were random, based on the adult population of that time, the Association would have a hell of a lot more than five million members.

So, what’s going on with the numbers?

Maybe the fact that Public Policy Polling is the “it” Democrat pollster has something to do with it. That and the old saying about lies, damned lies, and statistics…

And there’s one other thing going on, something no one ever seems to want to acknowledge whenever gun-grabbers make sweeping proclamations based on something they want everybody to believe: What do the respondents actually know about the subjects they’re being questioned on, and how are the questions worded?

That’s what 97Percent is doing with its deceptive poll, or as they call it, “Targeted Petition.” What they’re targeting are your rights.

“The conversation and political discourse around gun safety has [sic] excluded the voice of gun owners for far too long,” they fake-solemnly intone. “Aim for Change is a petition in support of four research-based policies that could effectively reduce gun-related homicides and suicides. We believe in our right to bear arms but also on laws that keep America safe. It’s time to speak up.”

They then invite you (anyone, including Democrats and other gun-grab apparatchiks, but they’ll present the results as “gun owners”) to “sign the petition,” one that has four objectives:

01 CLOSE THE VIOLENT MISDEMEANOR LOOPHOLE

Set violent misdemeanor crimes (including assault, battery, and stalking) as the threshold for exclusion from gun purchases and possession.

It also, per Gun Owners of America’s “Lautenberg  Horror Stories,” could include A LIFETIME BAN for tearing a pocket or throwing a set of keys. It could even include someone who lawfully defended himself but, because threatened with a felony by a prosecutor determined to make a charge stick, pled down to a misdemeanor because he couldn’t afford to fight and/or feared what a conviction would do to his life.  Are the respondents aware of that?

(As a tangentially related aside, NRA “leadership” has once more stepped in it by changing the rules and electing Lautenberg Amendment fanboy Bob Barr as First Vice President.)

02 PASS STATE-LEVEL GUN PERMIT LAWS

States would require a permit in order to purchase and possess a gun. Two permits would be issued at the same time, a general one and one for concealed carry.

Just like the Founders intended? These are people who begin their petition with “I believe in the right to bear arms” and then show everyone what huge “buts” they have by diminishing them to revokable permitted privileges…? Didn’t our friends over at Grassroots North Carolina just get the anti-gun governor’s veto and that state’s Jim Crow purchase permit law overturned? And aren’t the majority of states (27 at this writing with Nebraska joining the ranks) now permitless carry states (with GRNC pushing to make it happen there before the legislative session ends)?

What kind of idiot gun owner oblivious to this would support taking two steps backward and mandating new edicts grown from racist roots? The kind that thinks the 97Percent scam is a good idea?

03- IMPLEMENT STATE + FEDERAL BACKGROUND CHECKS

Required simplified federal, and state background check as part of the gun permitting process.

In other words, criminalize heretofore legal private sales and impose a prior restraint and government permission to claim a right. They’re relying on poll respondents not knowing that no less an “authority” than the National Institute of Justice has admitted “Universal background checks … [e]ffectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…”

They’re also hoping no one will ask how come such infringements never seem to stop the scofflaws who are committing all the killings in Democrat/Bloomberg Mayor cities like Chicago and Baltimore, and why the real homicide problem doesn’t come from peaceable gun owners, but overwhelmingly occurs in known specific geographic areas.

(As another tangentially related aside, if they were truly interested in background checks without the possibility of a system that could be amped up to include registration, the grabbers would be pushing something like BIDS, the Blind Identification Data System. It’s still a prior restraint, and absolutists like me would still be opposed to it, but it’s useful to bring up because it shows what the antis are really after is a camel’s nose under the tent.)

04- ENACT RED FLAG LAWS WITH DUE PROCESS PROTECTIONS

State-level laws would allow law enforcement or family members to petition a court to remove firearms from a person who is a threat to themselves and others. This would include due process protections for the gun owner.

And what would those be? This already presumes the accused is a threat and rights have been taken away based on the say-so of a not entirely disinterested party, maybe even a vengeful ex seeking divorce settlement advantages, with other prohibitionist factions demanding “red flags” to close “boyfriend” or “terror” loopholes, all without being charged, let alone convicted of a crime.  Since when is “guilty until proven innocent” the Constitutional standard? It’s reminiscent of a passage from Alice in Wonderland, where the Queen of Hearts declares “Sentence first. Verdict afterwards.” There was a time even a child could see the tyrannical absurdity and injustice of that.

The inescapable truth is anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian. If a person is really a threat, take him in, prove it, and then segregate him from those he could harm. The legal system provides a way to do that. It’s just that it’s harder because it requires REAL due process. It’s supposed to. That’s the way the Founders thought best to protect individual liberty, which after all, is what the system they bequeathed to Posterity is supposed to be about, instead of these cheap “legal” shortcuts designed to railroad Americans based on accusations. And, of course, it also presumes that “gun control” works.

Going over and trying to take the poll, you’ll find even if you select “Skip” to not click on the targets, it still presents a “Submit your petition” link at the end. I declined, because of the way these ideological snake oilers have treated site visitors thus far. Forgive me for suspecting that they’d count any petition submitted as a way to boost their numbers.

It will be interesting to see what results they ultimately publish and how many responses they say they get. Especially since, despite obvious financing and tons of free national publicity for years, they’ve only managed to attract 10,000 Facebook and less than that many Twitter “followers.” If that doesn’t say “Pure Astroturf,” nothing does.

I’ve written about these false fronts before, first on assignment for Firearms News and then several pieces to apprise AmmoLand readers about the divide-and-conquer strategy being used to make it look like gun owners support even more infringements on their rights. What they’re for the most part doing is exploiting the uninformed and/or those for whom RKBA is of secondary interest, new gun owners (the so-called “GunCulture 2.0”), Fudds, and Democrats.

For any gullible gun owner lured in through 97Percent’s slick presentation, ask some questions and you’ll see how hollow their assertions are. Because if you buy into their rights swindle, you’re really just being bare naked in the town square conned by apparatchiks, useful idiots, and Judas goats:

For further background see:

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

David Codrea

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