Framing danger of guns as public health risk: The strategy

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...a73490-cf27-11e3-a6b1-45c4dffb85a6_story.html

Pay attention - here is the strategy:

Third, it would focus on successes, not failures. Since 1993, the rate of gun homicides has dropped by a third while the number of nonfatal gun crimes has dropped by 69 percent, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. On every metric that matters, we are safer from guns today than we were 20 years ago. When it comes to public health, success breeds momentum. Drops in the rate of smoking led to smoke-free bars and higher cigarette taxes, reducing smoking further. After the first wave of laws setting blood-alcohol limits reduced drunk driving deaths in the ’70s and ’80s, advocates successfully fought for even tougher limits. By building a narrative of success, progressives can restore confidence in law enforcement and show that new laws are worth the effort and can be applied without restricting the rights of responsible gun owners.

Messaging matters in every political issue. On the issue of guns and violence, its importance is measured in lives saved or lives lost. The last year has shown conclusively that from a messaging perspective, progressives are losing the gun debate. By reframing the debate, it is possible to choose a winning message and make Americans safer.


The plan:
Ride the coattails of actual gun safety education and try to take credit for the steadily decreasing rate of "gun crimes" and accidents. Once credit is taken via the careful construction of a new narrative a renewed push for gun control will suddenly be more palatable to the masses.


"When it comes to public health, success breeds momentum."
What does that sound like to you? Sounds like incrementalism to me.


anti-gun logic:
We (progressives) have been losing the debate.
Despite this, "gun crimes" and accidents have been steadily decreasing for decades.
Therefore, our great ideas are needed to continue this trend.
 
Notice that they're not talking about the vast majority of the country deregulating - lessening restrictions on gun ownership/ccw.
 
"Public Health" has been looking for reasons to continue to exist and this is one of them. The foundations of public health date to the 18th century when the goal was to reduce communicable diseases. Hence the push for Small Pox vaccination, septic systems, sanitariums for Lepers, Tuberculosis patients, and other infectious disease patients. It's why there were quarantine laws in most of the US. It worked all too well and diseases like Polio, Measles, Chicken Pox, etc., are all but unknown in the US today.

The problem was, they had nothing left to do. So, the people that run public health agencies embarked on a mission to expand the disease far beyond anything rational people would consider public health. Seat belts, helmet laws, car seats, smoking, obesity, and on and on until anything can now be considered a "public health crisis".

Except AIDS because even back in the 1980s when HIV/AIDS first emerged, there was a concerted denial that it was a public health issue despite the fact that it fit the original criteria.

Which is why I ignore everything that the public health lobby says.
 
Which is why I ignore everything that the public health lobby says.
If you can get your elected representatives to ignore it as well, then maybe we're on to something.



The "pro gun" groups really need to start aggressively taking control of the "gun safety" narrative before it gets marginalized any more. It is sad that despite the well established history of firearms safety instruction that there is any need for "messaging" on the subject.

As the author of the above article says: success breeds momentum. Firearm safety education programs, by the NRA and NSSF, are well established and have a history of success that I think is clear from the ever declining rate of firearms accidents. What can be done from our side to advertise and thus further propel that success? Traveling "gun safety forums" as a counter to the "gun violence forums"? Westford Pro2A had a firearm Q&A session last year that went well.


Who cares about gun safety?

Everytown Website Helps Nobody
 
Arguably it is a public health issue, but the cause isn't legal gun owners it's more the war on drugs, poverty and mental health issues.
 
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