#GunControl and the Power of ‘The Narrative’

By: Peter Gunn

The other day I was speaking with a 19-year-old young lady who is a neo-gun control believer. As a High School Senior, she was naturally horrified by the events of Parkland high school and, and as one would expect, these events hit close to home for her. In this conversation, she invoked “Trayvon Martin” and “Michael Brown” and my heart just sank. I wanted to scream “They died in the commission of FELONIES! They are NOT VICTIMS!” Both of the investigations in those cases were heavily and unreasonably biased against the defenders from the get-go and STILL the evidence of self-defense was obvious and undeniable. Behold the power of The Narrative.

As folks on the opposite side from the Liberal/Progressive point of view, I think we absolutely fail to understand the true power of Narrative Politics. In order to influence a population using Narrative Politics, you must craft the story that will lead the audience to the conclusion you WANT them to draw, regardless of truth, by making them FEEL a certain way about the subject. Any information that does not agree with The Narrative must be squelched. This is a nearly daily occurrence in the American “Mainstream” Media.

Trayvon Martin is a prime example of how Narrative Politics works; Instead of starting with a crime and following the evidence to lead to the truth, whatever it would be, The Left/Progressives started by publicly creating the Narrative of the case and working backwards. The Narrative was that Trayvon Martin was an innocent teenager, who went out to buy some Skittles and encountered hateful armed white Racist George Zimmerman a self-appointed vigilante who murdered the poor child in cold blood solely because Trayvon was black and wearing a hoodie. I crossed out “white” above because when The Narrative first aired, no one knew what George Zimmerman looked like. If we were honest with ourselves, we would admit that that his name sounds like an older white man which is what happened at the time. When it was revealed that Zimmerman was Hispanic, there was a pause for about a day and half while The Narrative people regrouped. This was not going to be a “White on Black” murder….it was “minority on minority” which doesn’t serve The Narrative. Some clever soul in the Left/Progressive camp saved the day by claiming Zimmerman was a “White Hispanic”. While the term did exist before this use, it very effectively got The Narrative back up and running! The Villain was a WHITE (Hispanic), the emphasis on the former over the latter when said out loud. It worked like a charm. How many celebrities did we see wearing Hoodies and holding up “Justice for Trayvon” signs?

The Narrative in turn forced the DA’s office to charge George Zimmerman as an appeasement to mounting pressure from those who bought into the Narrative. It did not matter in the slightest he officers who arrived on scene when Martin was shot did not charge Zimmerman because the story added up perfectly. Zimmerman’s injuries were consistent with his story, he had been on the phone with 911, there was even a witness to Martin assaulting Zimmerman. Since this information did not support The Narrative, it was not highly publicized.

The eyewitness testimony and the physical evidence from the crime scene show that Trayvon Martin was straddling George Zimmerman and beating him in the face “MMA Style” when the bullet entered his body. They Jury correctly found that at the moment George Zimmerman pulled the trigger, he was in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury. This is the standard for determining justification. It was also learned in his hometown, Trayvon was suspended from school for vandalism and based on the Women’s jewelry and tools found in his school backpack, he was under suspicion of being a burglar. This makes Zimmerman’s claims that he witnessed Martin walking through backyards and looking in windows seem a lot more plausible than merely a racist fabrication to cover his butt after a murder.

So powerful is The Narrative that the truths revealed in this case simply do not exist in the national discourse. They are totally eclipsed by the way the left wants the event to have happened. The Narrative is the “lie told often enough” and it becomes a synthetic truth. Once people buy in to The Narrative, you can then get them to support whatever goal you created The Narrative for. In the case of Trayvon Martin, it was to attack the “stand your ground” laws in Florida as well as general gun banning and originally to paint white people as racist.

The true master and founder of The Narrative was none other than Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Ironically, Adolf Hitler didn’t start off against the Jews, he was after the Communists. Goebbels, a rabid Anti-Semite inserted Antisemitism into HIS Narrative and it was so well received by the audience at rallies, Hitler almost had no choice but to incorporate it into his platform.

Today, The Narrative has embraced the School Shooting in Parkland. David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez are the poster children for The Narrative. Quick, can you name 3 of the kids who died? How about the name of the kid who was shot holding the door for his friends to escape? Of course you cannot, but David Hogg is a household name. He serves The Narrative. The Narrative is of course, The NRA is evil, Assault weapons need to be confiscated, and Right/Conservatives are horrible people who don’t care about children dying in school shootings. The narrative is deliberately ignoring:

  • The sheer criminal negligence of the Broward County Sheriff’s office to deal with the shooter despite over 20 contacts with their office
  • The failure of Deputy Scott Peterson to engage the shooter
  • The incompetent call of the scene commander to stage officers and medics instead of engaging the shooter and treating the wounded
  • The failures of the FBI to identify the threat posed by the shooter.
  • The failure of the Broward County School District to take adequate measures to secure the school and protect the students

Despite these agencies being directly responsible for the shooter to have been in the school that day and murdering those children, The Narrative has given them all a pass. Sheriff Israel is a loyal Democrat and in 2004 the Broward County Sheriff’s office went on CNN with a “demonstration” of those terrible “assault weapons” that were going back on the streets with the sun-setting of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. They deliberately used fully automatic machine guns for the demonstration which were exactly NOT the guns that were the subject of the ban. The NRA’s Wayne LaPiere, also part of that story, Accused CNN of “faking” the story on air. The cut him off an issued a retraction a few days later. The Broward County Sheriff’s’ office is a long standing Friend of The Narrative.

David Hogg’s father was an FBI Agent and his Mother is a Teacher in the Broward County School System, two of the three agencies who failures lead to the deaths of the Parkland students. Not one believer in The Narrative can recognize this conflict of interest or will even question it. The Narrative does not allow itself to be questioned.

The Narrative’s “March for our Lives” army have the “Everytown For Gun Safety” logo emblazoned on their banners, but yet the counter protesting students who support the Second Amendment are accused of being Astroturfed by the “Gun Lobby”. To clarify, the group being supplied with Hotels, Transportation, logo t shirts, sweatshirts and banners by a Globalist Billionaire are accusing their opponents of being paid shills. The Hypocrisy is invisible to the believers of The Narrative-they can’t see it even when you point it out directly. It would be comical if the consequences were not so dire.

While we can see the “man behind the curtain” with perfect clarity, and The Narrative has zero effect on us. Like the Star Wars Force, The Narrative has a great deal of power over the weak minded. Our attempt to rationalize with believers of The Narrative will never entirely be successful. We will win some here and there but we will never win the war. I submit it is our tactics that are to blame. We are trying to use logical arguments with people who have abandoned reason in favor of blind ideology. In order to win, we need to get down into their level, use their tactics, and lure their sheep away to our camp.

As an example, we allowed the Gun Ban movement to create the term “Assault Weapon” and then characterize the AR-15 as a weapon of war, blah blah blah, insert Hyperbole, and hysteria. Trying to point out that no military in the world uses an AR-15 and that it is a protected Militia Weapon under the U.S. Constitution is useless to win over people who FEEL like the AR-15 is an army gun. The easiest way to win, is the simply do what they did-change the name. Instead of calling it an AR-15 (which they incorrectly believe stands for “assault rifle”) manufacturers simply change the name to HDR-15 for Home Defense Rifle. The Left/Progressives will absolutely be painted in a corner. They can’t really admit that changing a name doesn’t make something less dangerous because that’s what they did to make it seem more dangerous. Their sheep will FEEL like a Home Defense rifle is a good thing, and maybe they should have one. The best part is companies could market “kits” to retrofit old ARs to make them HDRs(I envision a new dust cover that is stamped “HDR-15”). Before long, no one will own an “assault rifle” but Millions of Americans will own Home Defense rifles. God Bless America! It’s ridiculous and stupid, but that is exactly how our opponents work.

We need to adopt their tactics and beat them at their own game to win or else we can continue to watch The Narrative lead us right off the cliff.

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Author: Peter Gunn

Peter Gunn is has been involved with Second Amendment issues for nearly twenty years, In addition to testifying before the State legislature, Gunn hosted the Polite Society podcast and was a staff writer for both Tavernkeepers and the Brenner Brief. Having grown up in Lexington Massachusetts, Peter learned at an early age the power and necessity of an armed citizenry. Peter now lives in rural New Hampshire, as far away from other people as he can get.

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7 thoughts on “#GunControl and the Power of ‘The Narrative’

  1. This is why people need to read “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky. What is being done is what he promoted. And then people need to read what Marx wrote and examine how what he proposed and claimed would happen has failed on a regular basis by people who have tried to implement it. One must always look behind the curtain and see what the real objective actually is. In the final equation the “Left” is about power over people – or “Supremacy of the State and Supremacy of those in control of the State”.

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