“People of the Gun?” Count me in.

You can write any kind of claptrap these days, and as long as you call it a “blog,” you don’t have to worry about backing up any of your assertions with facts.

Case in point: Laura Washington’s silly little diatribe, called “Let’s Pry Open Those Cold Dead Hands.”

She starts by claiming that Americans are crying out for more gun control. Apparently, the standards in Journalism school have sunk to such a degree that the only attribution required is, “national news polls.” It seems that corporate entertainment product has replaced research these days.

“The rabid response of the gun lobby is damning, but impressive. They out-gun, out-email, gun-control advocates by more than 20 to one. Their ability to organize a rapid response is exactly the opposite of FEMA. The gun army, made up almost exclusively of white men from suburban and rural areas, is loaded for bear.”

How does Ms. Washington know that the responses come from white folks? From email? Do these people announce gender and ethnicity in their signature blocks or something?

Nope. Ms. Washington is doing the same thing everyone else on the left does. She’s generalizing gun owners into the fashionable stereotype. Ask anyone raised on CNN and the internet what they picture when you say, “NRA.” The response is almost always the same: fat, beer-swilling white guys with an extra 150lbs on the waistline and a dessicated deer’s head on the front rack of the pickup truck.

Stereotypes are a dangerous thing, and something the Left claims to despise. Unless, of course, they serve a rhetorical purpose. Then, the Left embraces them.

So she’s calling us “People of the Gun.” I love that phrase. I’m now going to use it every chance I get. You wrote it, Ms. Washington, but it’s mine now.

She wants gun-control advocates to organize and start using modern technology to fight what she sees as the NRA-backed, Republican Killing Machine. What she fails to understand is that the NRA receives its funding and support from the People of the Gun, and that we have one very important tool on our side: the facts.

I’ve gone on in detail before about the semantic inaccuracies, emotional appeals and outright falsehoods used by the Left to advance their cause. Those are the only weapons in their arsenal, and lately, they’ve just not been enough.

“That majority is represented by well-meaning citizen groups, like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and graying civil rights stalwarts like the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson and his Rainbow/PUSH. Their tactic is to organize anti-gun marches and rallies to push for stricter gun laws and penalties. But here’s a news flash: No one is listening.”

She’s right. With friends like Sarah Brady and Jesse Jackson…well, who needs enemies? Why not add Diane Feinstein, Carolyn McCarthy and the Million Mom March to the mix? If these are the best spokesmodels the Left can come up with, and that should tell you something about the validity of their cause.
Face it: we’ve got Ann Coulter, and she’s sexier than all those folks put together.

The only gasp of strategy Ms. Washington gives is this:

“Women and the African-American church, get them behind the keyboard, and you’ll unleash a thunderous counterpunch to the gun lovers’ old one-two.”

Which might work, but for the fact that those two demographics are the fastest growing among the People of the Gun. Both groups are tired of being victimized, and they’re sick of being told to roll over and play dead until the police arrive. They’re starting to realize that the right to self-defense is fundamental and guaranteed, and they’re increasingly insulted by the Left’s logical fallacies.

So, how do you silence the People of the Gun?  You don’t. The public is waking up to the 73-year-old lie they’ve been fed, and they’re not putting up with it. People of the Gun aren’t rednecks. We’re immigrants, blacks, women, the elderly and anyone else who’s tired of being told to play the victim and trust a corrupt state.

My advice, Ms. Washington, is to shut up and fight another pet cause. This one’s dead and buried. Save the bandwidth for something worthwhile.