This is the expanded initial draft version of Propaganda 101f. It contains ideas and suggestions on what to do about propaganda.

For some considerable time there has been an incredible effort made by gun control organisations to remove firearms from law abiding citizens. The chosen method is propaganda. No major event involving firearms is allowed to go by without ideology attached and blame for all ills placed on firearm owners. The greater the emotion that can be generated from the event the greater is the propaganda effort of gun control organisations. All willing to bask in the blood of victims like sharks in a feeding frenzy, knowingly using the emotion of the event to promote their evil campaign.

Legal firearm owners, not criminals as one would hope are the focus of this campaign. Which will deliberately blur the distinction between legal firearm owners and criminal use of firearms. Lumping them all together and claiming control of one group is the control of the other, the common factor being guns.

These organisations are no friends as they present themselves and in truth are some of the most highly skilled spin-doctors practising the art of persuasion on earth. That they have enjoyed great success with these methods is an indication of the effectiveness of this type of campaign. Like a creeping cancer they are patient, repeating the same slogans and lies over and over again until even the most stupid can understand them.

They know and understand fear and emotion and will play on them such that people will react without thinking. That the mention of a word or phrase will result not in thought but will conjure up a picture or symbol, producing an emotional result or reaction. At this point such a person becomes a believer in the cause and will defend that belief. Logical argument plays little part in reversing this belief because each and every time the person thinks of the object of the propaganda a feeling of distaste, fear or horror will persuade them of the error of logical argument.

For this type of persuasion to flourish all that is required is to present one side of the coin only. The media aids this by selection, thus imposing censorship allowing the process to flourish with little opposition. That the media promotes this propaganda campaign at every opportunity with sensationalist biased reporting of firearms related events is not in question. The only question that can be asked of the media is why. Because innocence of a practice that is their stock in trade can not be used as an excuse. All will claim it is to increase readership, circulation or viewing and is what the public wants. How they sleep at night when it is realised that their actions will cost the lives of millions of innocent people is a wonder.

Note the introduction of all recent gun control legislation around the world. All without exception have been introduced after some tragic event involving firearms. The vast majority involving children. Not one piece of legislation introduced would have prevented that event or any other similar event. It is in almost all cases doubtful if without the emotion generated by the event that legislation would have passed. The result of this legislation is that crime has not decreased as was promised but increased. A sure indication that some lies were told. Who told them. Governments and their allies, gun control organisations.

Propaganda

We need to examine the principles used in propaganda so that it can be readily recognised. Sometimes propaganda can be difficult to identify but for the most part the practitioner will not be subtle and appeal to an emotional response. This could be as simple as a slogan "guns kill" or more complex as a story of grief, desperation and horror of some firearm related event. The object being to get the audience to remember the subject with an emotional response such that the mention of the object "gun" conjures up in the mind a picture of great emotion. It is this emotional response that is desired because people in the main respond to their feelings rather than reason.

The purpose of the persuasion is to carry out a task. It can be carried out by offering a solution, "get rid of all Jews".

Stereotypes

Some of the more specific techniques employed are the use of stereotypes which has a natural tendency to type people and in time this may become a fixed impression. Some familiar stereotypes are Negro, Jew, communist, criminal, nut, freak and capitalist.

Euphemisms

The use of euphemisms or substitution of words is also employed to change the impression of a statement. This is used to disguise the harsh reality of disabled or paraplegic by replacement with "physically challenged". It can in the same manner be used to reverse the impression as well. The president of the union becomes "union boss" or firearm owners become "cowboys", "firearms freaks", "gun nuts" or "gun slingers".

Censorship and Falsehood

The persuader will select only those facts that are suitable for the purpose. Thus from a vast array of data only that which matches the sentiments of the purpose are selected. The failed attempts of firearm legislation to reduce crime will not be mentioned. If there are no supporting facts for the purpose these can be manufactured. Falsehood is the stock in trade of the persuader. Such as these familiar statements. "You are more likely to be killed with your own gun". "Firearms owners are part of the problem". "Children’s lives will be saved".

Repetition

The persuader hopes that in time the audience will accept repetition of the same key words or slogan. This practice is much used in advertising. Most often the statement makes no sense but if it can be attached to emotion or feeling so much the better like "Beer is good" and "guns kill".

Assertions

Assertions are made since only one side of the picture is being presented thus limiting free thought and questions, both of which are to be avoided. You can’t talk back to or debate with a TV or newspaper. This is the essence of persuasion. The assertions may be for or against and can be directed at some real or imagined enemy. The enemy can be that which is frustrating the purpose or the will of the audience. "Firearms owners are responsible for the large number of illegal guns and we need much stricter controls to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands." Is an attempt to persuade that firearm owners are responsible for crime and the solution is to decrease the number of firearms available. This ignores the fact that the victim of the theft of a firearm does not contribute to the crime in which the firearm was used.

It is exactly what women have had to contend with in cases of rape and places a presumption of guilt on the victim of somehow aiding the criminal act. We see the same thinking in all firearms legislation where the person wishing to legally own a firearm is presumed to be a lesser or deviant citizen.

Appeals to Authority

Suggestion by its nature is an appeal to authority. That authority may be a prominent person, the state, religion, science or some profession. The persuader will also make the appeal deliberately vague and have no logical references that can be checked. "American statistics have shown that.", "Medical research indicates that.", "Doctors agree that."

Band Wagoning

The appeal may also be to follow the crowd. "Overwhelming support for stricter controls". "The public have indicated that.", "All respondents." implies that everyone is doing it, those that are not, are outsiders and should do the same. Commonly referred to as band wagoning.

Emotional Appeals

Emotional appeals. "Make your country safe for your children", "If just one life could be saved", "Children die each day" are just some of the many examples of emotional appeals used. They form the main thrust of gun controls propaganda campaign; all appeals are emotional appeals in one way or another.

Note that all are appeals to the emotional sense and not the logical sense. There is much value in words that conjure up pictures in the recipients’ mind. There is much value in pictures that shock that can be associated with the words of appeal. The preference shown by gun control organisations to use tragic events involving children has been brought about by the success obtained from these events in getting gun control legislation passed.

Gun control has found a powerful emotional lever into the hearts and minds of people. A lever that it will exploit regardless of the pain and suffering of those directly involved with the tragedy. The media will descend on the event like a pack of hyenas, ripping and tearing it apart until nothing remains. Nobody wants to see such an event repeated and will accept without question the falsity of gun control in preventing a reoccurrence.

Special appeals

Special appeals, fear is a very powerful inducement much favoured by the anti-firearms organisations. The audience is warned that disaster will follow if a certain course is not followed. "Rampant crime will increase unless we drastically reduce the number of guns in our society". "The number of people killed with firearms will increase unless we remove all guns". "Crime and violence is the result of our gun culture."

Demonisation

Demonisation such as "Guns kill", "Cop killer bullets", "Guns are evil", "Guns were designed to kill" is also used. If the words do not enrage then an atrocity can be used to create emotion. "If there were no guns then these innocent school children would still be alive." "John X in cold blood murdered four innocent school children with a gun". So good was the British W.W.II wartime propaganda in stigmatising the Germans that even today, more than 50 years after the event, Germans bear the stigma attached. Firearm owners now find themselves in a similar position of being stigmatised by gun control organisations.

Logical Fallacies

Logical fallacies are the process of drawing a false conclusion from one or more premises. "Thousands of firearms are stolen or lost by legal firearm owners. These guns are used to murder, rob and rape people. Stricter controls will reduce these crimes by eliminating this source of firearms." The logic presented ignores the fact that criminals will obtain firearms from the many available sources. That removal of only one source will simply change the pattern of flow of guns to criminals. It also places blame and responsibility on firearm owners for the criminal act of theft. In exactly the same way blame is placed on rape victims for inviting the crime.

In simple terms some logical fallacies. Cats have four legs. Dogs have four legs. All dogs are cats. Criminals use guns. Citizens own guns. All gun owners are criminals.

Unwarranted Extrapolation

We can also create logical fallacies with unwarranted extrapolation. Which is prediction based on a few data points and extended greatly. The residents of Alexandria interviewed did not own firearms. Therefor "our studies show that there are no firearms in Alexandria".

Statistics

Statistics are a wonderful tool in the persuaders’ hands. If at first the figures do not indicate the desired result them remove the offending figures or add some other influence until they do. When the gun control laws of Washington DC were first introduced the population figures of the city prior to the introduction were used to show that crime had decreased. However more than a hundred thousand people had left Washington DC because they wished to continue to own firearms. This reduction although known to the city fathers was not used in the per capita crime rate calculations.

HCI, Handgun Control Inc. claims that 13 children per day die in the US from guns. The children are aged up to 19 years of age and include gang and drug related deaths. Kathrine McKenzie studies 10 African countries and provides validity of her study by examining one country that fits the case, Botswana. Excluding all other data presented in the study that showed the opposite result.

Logical Sleight of Hand

An example of logical sleight of hand. "If the government does not pass legislation on the private ownership of firearms, soon the country will be awash in illegal firearms". Here the appeal is made to fear, and false logic is applied to the results of not carrying out the action.

Note that often two or more techniques are often combined in an assertion and defining the exact techniques used is often difficult as some such as types of appeals tend to merger into each other.

What has to be remembered is that propaganda is chosen by those with a weak or false case to bring to the public attention that which they would change. Gun control in all its vast number of implementations in many countries over many years does not have a single success of reducing crime. This obvious fact and proof of the falsity of gun control in reducing crime is overlooked by all.

The Antidote

What can you do about it. Remember that the only "antidote" is the free flow of opposing ideas. That government and the media all attempt to do what they perceive the public to want. Thus it is by response from the public and public acceptance of the need to do something that they react. Neither wishes to lose its audience or popularity.

• Communicate with as many people as possible and engage them in discussion and debate. The more people you contact the better. Here are some ways of reaching a wider audience. Letters to government officials, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio stations, Internet news groups and chat groups. Set up a website or webpage and promote your beliefs.

• How to be efficient and reach as wide an audience as possible. Remember that not all newspapers will publish your letter and if you chose one local and a national paper, both can receive the same letter. The same applies to magazines, just chose more than one, mail off your letter. Be circumspect do not mail the same letter to similar organisations where you will be found out. Rather reduce the number of recipients or change the wording to suit each case. Where possible co-ordinate your effort by either letting others know about it or sending a letter to promote some one else’s effort. There is much power in the number of letters received and the SABC some years back considered each letter received as the opinion of 5000 viewers.

• Do not cross post to many Internet news groups, as it will soon be noticed. However you can still get two copies off, one to a pro-gun group and one to an anti-gun group. Prowl the anti-gun groups and answer any firearm-related questions or pose as a newly converted and ask some questions expressing doubt about some figures or statement. Political and religious groups are good fishing grounds. Many sites and organisations have discussion boards. Monitor and use them. Promote discussion do not just look to reply.

• Try to gauge the audience by the content of the publication. Female oriented publications are not interested in the technical detail of firearms but the emotion and trauma of crime and in particular rape is very much an issue. In any event try hard to stay away from the technical details of firearm issues that the public do not understand and concentrate on the emotional issues.

• Keep contact with interest groups and form your own local group. Letters to a local newspaper should come from local people. Share addresses, letters and interesting information with as many people as possible.

• Writing letters and direct debate on news groups will require a different strategy. You will not blind them with science or convince them with logic. You must use the same techniques as the persuader and make assertions that are different to what they believe. Putting in a slogan or two is also a good idea. "Crime free is not gun free" is a good example. Or reverse it and say, "Gunfree is not crime free".

• Often this is all you need say. Now they must answer and support their view which is based on emotion not logic. The best they can do probably is offer one of their slogans like "everyone knows guns kill". Counter this with some other assertion or slogan "Guns can’t talk, guns can’t walk." Be humorous and use some misinformation. Did you know that next elections they are going to let guns vote.

• The issue of crime and crime prevention or reduction is far better to use than a direct support of firearms. Because of the demonization of firearms by gun control organisations many are afraid of them. Building a strong case of support for firearms will not win such people over and they will reject or ignore your effort. However they will not ignore the issue of crime or the results of crime.

Some one line ideas off the cuff:

• Crime free not gun free.
• People that support gunfree owe victims of crime an apology.
• Gunfree the criminals friend.
• Criminals could not wish for a better friend that Gunfree
• Criminals are empowered by the removal of resistance to them.
• The government is responsible for crime, not firearm owners.
• Gun free is an open invitation to home invaders.
• Gunfree supporters don’t put signs on their homes and property.
• Fringe lunatic gun control organisations
• The criminals friends, promoting crime.
• The hysterical screams of save the criminals organisations
• Idiots promoting crime, using the facade of saving lives
• They are but a match strike away from burning witches at the stake.
• Emotion mongering disciples of Hitler.
• Our growth industry, crime is about to receive government backing
• Dance to gun controls tune and die.
• Hi-jackers of truth
• Animators of metal and lies

• GFSA: Grief For South Africa
• GCA: Gunfree, Crime, Anarchy.
• GCA: Gunfree for Criminal Advancement
• GCA: Gangsters and Criminal Advancement
• ISS: Incorrect Statistics Suppliers

  Copyright ã Crime Free SA, 1999. All rights reserved

Last update 20/8/2000