Social Media & Gun Control

[Dashunde]

Anti-gun folks don't seem to have the same conviction - guns are in amongst the other liberal fodder clambering for priority on election day.

On the other hand, I've come to notice that individuals who believe in gun rights tend to stick with that position, hold 2A near the top of their priorities, and actually vote accordingly for life.

We have the advantage of having actually shot a firearm, felt its security blanket and willingness to provide a meal. That sticks with you.

The number one thing we can do that the internet can not is to expose a new person to the fun of shooting.
Getting new people out somewhere they can shoot up junk, wood or other reactive targets is a great way to turn someone who is remotely willing.

My Brazilian (socialist/democrat minded) Mother-in-law, brother-in-law and my wife's best friend are all gun-loving converts due to taking them shooting.
They've held it, fired it, and now understand it and want it for themselves... too bad they can't vote here.
Perhaps I wasted ammo on them?!

 

[ronl]

I think social media is an overall good thing. I can say that without the Internet we would be in a world of hurt. Social media does allow the common man the ability to allow his voice to be heard, even if it is at a minimal volume. Such things as the banning of SS109 bullets, the military banning the sale of spent cases to the public, etc. would have simply been adopted as policy. Social media and alternative news sources are often the only ones putting such things out into the public forum. Public outcry can still have some effect. I can truly say that relying on the MSM for information is a total waste of time, as true journalism in this country has, for the most part, gone the route of the dinosaur.

 

[TimSr]

I guess you have to look at pre-internet and compare. Used to be electronic media had a total monopoly on what information and version of the truth was to be released for public consumption, and they were not exactly reverent to the 2nd Amendment.

Yes, today there are no limits on the information that can be put out there, but at least all views can actually be put out there and considered. I'd rather have bad information from multiple sides to evaluate, than have only bad information from one side.

I strongly disagree that news media ever puts out both sides of an issue, even unfairly or biased. When an anti-gun media source puts out a pro gun position, it is for the sole purpose of misrepresenting that position and then arguing against it - the straw man argument, for which Obama is famous in adopting. Even those Sunday morning discussion panels who represent "differing opinions" usually consist of a stack deck who offer varying degrees of support for one point of view.

Most poeple dismiss all the political garbage as such, but the bigger impact in social meida is all the links to local news stories of people using their weopons to defend themselves, something we never got before.

If I'm trying to be informed I'd rather have all the information, and decide for myself what is worthwhile, as opposed to anti-gun media people making that determination for me. That would be about as nutty as allowing someone you are investigating to pick out which emails you get to see.

 

[BarryLee]

I suppose when I say social media I’m thinking less about the internet in general and more about things like Twitter. Recently we’ve seen a major call for the removal of all references to the Confederacy. Now, whether you think this is a good or bad thing it’s been a long ongoing debate. However, in the last week we’ve seen politicians falling all over themselves to make a change, national retailers removing items from their shelves and calls for even more significant changes. All of this while many of the public polls I’ve seen show that people are still fairly evenly divided.

Now, again, this isn’t about confederate symbols, but the speed with which this thing seemed to takeoff and the way a very vocal minority seems to be getting their way. It concerns me that many younger people receive these 140 character snippets of information and act on them without really considering the complexities of the situation or the rights of other individuals. We already see many anti-gun politicians framing the gun control debate as some sort of racial issue. I worry that the firearms community isn’t getting our voices heard. I realize the NRA makes some efforts, but really are millennials listening to them. Maybe they could encourage more celebrities or politicians to speak out on the issue, but will people pay more attention when Tom Selleck speaks for guns rights or when Beyonce speaks out for more regulation.

Sorry, maybe I’m seeing something that’s not really there, but I fear a wave is building.

 

[kilimanjaro]

A wave is building, some kind of mixture of guns, race, and conservatism. Today's paper here printed the NY Times hit piece on how right-wing loners were more dangerous to the nation than Islamic terrorists, as long as they omitted the 9/11 attacks. A companion piece about a local homicide stressed in several paragraphs how a killer had ties to right-wing militias, sovereign movements, etc., in a dispute that involved squatters and nothing political or racial.

So the wave is being energized, whatever it is. Regardless of how we feel about the confederate flag, we now have a warning as to how fast politicians will cave in to a screaming minutiae of the electorate, right or wrong.

 

[Tom Servo]

Just a heads-up: the Confederate flag debate isn't really relevant to this thread.

 

[BarryLee]

the Confederate flag debate isn't really relevant to this thread

Yes, I understand and it was not my intention to enter into that debate. However, I was attempting to illustrate how rapidly social media may influence a long running debate.

 

[Dashunde]

Forthcoming, unbiased, truthful news died long ago... and now the internet is overrun with blogs and a multitude of biased "news outlets" posing as real journalist, such as the Huffington Post.
Made worse, too many of our soft-brained population actually buys into the slanted opinion-based journalism as fact.

The digital information age... problem is only 1/3rd of it is true, and far less than that is worth reading.

 

[kilimanjaro]

I can point to several people in my office, all with college degrees, who obtain their daily dose of news reporting from the comedian Jon Stewart. This amounts to their entire world view. As long as you agree with them, you are an acceptable human being. You can own a gun if they like you, as long as it's for hunting. If they don't like you, you shouldn't be allowed to own a gun.

 

[rickyrick]

Yup, what he said....

It's not hard to see that the public is being manipulated by the media.
The media is being controlled by various interests.
Trolls fill up social media

 

[bandaid1]

The media is nothing but propaganda. There is little truth to be found in their reporting and zero in their editorials. I think the public is waking up to this fact when it comes to the issue of firearms. They often talk about "miner" fixes to the laws and "common sense" changes that "they admit" will do nothing to stop violence. Then they wonder why no one is on board with their proposal.

 

[BarryLee]

The media is nothing but propaganda

While I don’t totally disagree traditional media does have some level of checks and balances. Also, the reality is most folks who watch ABC/CNN/FOX News have most likely already formulated a world view. This may include support or opposition to gun control and the ongoing debate may not really sway them much in either direction. However, if someone like Kendall Jenner were to use Twitter or Instagram to call for more gun control then suddenly you have over two million often unengaged people suddenly considering more gun control.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

An interesting aspect of social media and advocacy. Facebook has apparently been working with sociologists and psychologists on how their presentation of information can affect user behavior (typical media/advertising stuff but with obvious implications for politics).

One study was able to accurately (80%-ish IIRC) predict which Facebook users would change their avatar to an equal sign in support of gay marriage just by looking at the number of "Friends" who had done so and how long their avatars had been changed. It seems on controversial issues there was a strong correlation between how long somebody had been exposed to advocacy and how many of their friends were advocates.

The study didn't explore whether that was a case of birds of a feather or actual change of opinion happening; but it did remind me that in addition to our own commentary, Facebook or similar groups might be filtering social media to achieve some desired effect for their advertisers.

 

[bandaid1]

Using psychological messaging is nothing new, it started being used in the mid 1800's.. Making predictions on established norms is also easy to do. Try this: On a sheet of paper write the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, on the back of the paper write the number 3. Show someone the numbers on the front and ask the to pick a number quickly. 90% will pick the number 3. Show them the back side and be amazed.

This above example is known as objective threshold in Subliminal stimuli. It's a forced choice. Visual emotion eliciting stimuli is probably the most effective of all the different types. Those that are easily motivated by the stimuli are the most influenced by this type on messaging. For example if you are not thirsty, than a message about drinking something is not likely to work.

 

[rickyrick]

The same methods were used to trick people in the early 1900s to trick people into buying land on the southern plains. People had reservations about the long stretches witout significant rainfall

Experts swore that cultivating the plains would actually bring more rainfall to the area and plowing up the topsoil will allow more moisture to get deeper. University professors and scientist gave false info to convince people to buy these tracks.... We all know how that ended.

 

[doofus47]

bandaid1

Using psychological messaging is nothing new,

It's called "marketing" by the professionals in college.

I think that there is a niche in the population, probably the middle ground we are looking to convert, that doesn't actually realize (nor combine) two thought processes:
1. That the particular right under discussion is their right also. I would bet that most of the people in the middle don't have guns. Maybe they did growing up or their grand dad was in Viet Nam or whatever, but for their own current life situation, the idea of guns has no intersection and they see no need for it for themselves--and by extension for others as well.
2. That the limits that they want to place on others are limits that they want to place on themselves.

Example: I bought my wife a bow for Christmas. We shoot together occasionally. She will never go hunting but it's fun to get out together. I was watching some hunting or shooting show where the on-screen hog hunting pro was discussing the pros and cons of a particular air rifle that was shooting (para-phrase alert!) "with the power of a .357 magnum."
So my wife happened to be walking through the room at that moment and the statement piqued her interest.
"why make that?" she asked.
"I pointed out that they were just filling a market space to provide hunters with an airgun powerful-enough to kill hogs in areas were guns are not allowed." I said that it was an airgun and the usual restrictions for firearms didn't always apply.
She went on a mild rant about how people try to "find loopholes" and asked how "they" were going to keep that out of the hands of dangerous people if it was as powerful as a firearm and capable of killing someone. "why don't these guns need background checks or UBCs?" she asked. I waited a moment for dramatic effect and said
"you realize that your BOW is capable of killing a person, right? You're in the same camp now and you're asking that YOU should have been background checked TWICE under the current system to own that. How many state resources do you want to dedicate to checking EVERY item that could hurt another human being as it changes hands?" (OK, actually, the UBC check wouldn't have applied, since we're in the same nuclear family but I was going for drama and trying to include both of her examples.)
Her eyes actually widened a bit and she offered that it would make sense to check all dangerous items, but she was clearly not enamored of the thought that her hobby had now made her subject to multiple background checks (or requirements to report stolen/lost property, or....)

This is what people don't realize. This is why I always try to drag comparisons to the 4th or 1st amendments into my discussion. People have no idea where this rabbit hole could go: back to them.