People who know me personally will come to realize relatively quickly that I am not a terribly excitable person. You can surprise me, certainly, as you probably can any person, but that is a transitory and short-lived situation. But when it comes to true excitement, be it positive or negative, I am not terribly prone to it. However, when the situation arises that I do actually get actively engaged by or with something, it tends to be a full-force situation - kind of an all-or-nothing complex, that has caused me more than a few problems in the past.

One such item that has captured my attention is the realm of personal rights and freedoms, and especially self-defense. Honestly, I do not know why I have been on that kick for as long as I have been at this point, but it seems to be sticking, so I may as well ride it out, wierd looks or no. Anywise, one topic that comes up more often than not in discussions relating to self-defense is firearms, and the regulation/restricions thereof. On the one side, you have people like me, who think the current rules are a wee bit constricting (though that "wee bit" can range from "just a little, teensy bit" to "ohmigodwehavetogetridofthesenowtheyaresoatrociouslyhugely", depending on the person), and then, on the other side, are the people who believe we need more rules concerning the purchase and ownership of tools (and, again, the degree to which they believe this varies from person to person). Oddly, there are very few people happy with what we have now, and arguably in the middle of the debate... of course, that could be said for just about any argument.

However, one argument that rears its ugly little head way too often in these kinds of debates is a variation on the following theme: "None of these proposed rules/regulations/laws/restrictions would take your guns away, and no anti-gun organization is trying to take your gun away, so why are you not supporting this proposed legislation when it is for the [insert bleeding-heart cause here]?!" As I said, there are variations on this baseline, and sometimes things are added or subtracted, but that is the basic gist of everything. And, honestly, I have not bothered to check the veracity of whether or not there is any anti-rights organization out there publically and openly interested in disarming the American populace, but that is entirely and completely besides the point. Unfortunately, this particular argument has attracted my... excitement.

Robb Allen wrote an outstanding post a few days back, which brought to mind an analogy my father once taught me, which precipitated the theme for this post in general (along with the aforementioned argumentative ploy). The analogy runs kind of like this:

Cooking frogs can either be one of the easier things you can do, or one of the harder. See, frogs are not exactly the most intelligent of God's creation, but they are quick little rascals when they need to be. If you take a frog, and try and toss him into a pot of boiling water, he will jump out of that before you have the chance to react. Instead, you take the frog, and put him in a pot of room-temperature water, and then slowly, very slowly, raise the temperature on him until the water is good and boiling. The frog, being a frog, will not notice his impending doom, until it is a little too late.

So what relevance to do frogs have with firearms, especially since you generally do not use the latter to hunt the former (though I understand .22 rounds cause frogs to... well... expode)? Not much. Except that the ongoing battle against the latter has a lot in common with boiling the former.

I have to admit, conspiracy theory or no, it would be highly unlikey for any anti-guns, anti-rights, or otherwise hoplophobic organization to come out with a public and declared stance of banning all firearms throughout the country, privately owned or otherwise. The reaction of the gun-owners and rights-supporters around the country would be much like the reaction of the frog being dropped in boiling water - sudden, violent (metaphorically speaking, I hope), and very directed. Instead, all of those various organizations are taking the "how to eat an elephant" (yet another analogy... the answer being "one bite at a time") approach to firearms and personal rights.

The tactic is simple, and has worked for millenia. Take two polarly opposite people, on either side of a particular stance. Have both of them unwilling to meet in the center. Now, have one person of that debate be smart enought to realize that an all-out midway-point meeting is impossible, and instead start to test the waters on the little things. Maybe try banning something simply because it bears a resemblance to something the military uses to kill thousands of people with. Or maybe try requiring locks on something "for the safety of the children". Or maybe try instituting a national registry of something, because "law-abiding people have nothing to fear from the government having their name". But start small, and always, always have a good, emotionally-driven argument behind it - after all, the numbers do not have to be on your side if you can sway the heart of your opponent... or, even better, the hearts of your collective spectators. In fact, those spectators are often better targets for your tactics than your opponents, because if you can bring them to your side, you can add even more weight to the situation. Now, once you get the little things, start aiming for progressively larger and larger items - after all, momentum matters to more things than just rocks rolling downhill - and you can start getting a little more... "creative"... in your application of emotional arguments. Just because someone came by an item in a perfectly legal and aboveboard method does not mean that you cannot attack another perfectly legal and aboveboard method, using that someone's illegal and horrific actions as leverage, especially if you have waged an effective campaign to malign the second method as much as possible. Oh, yeah, and do not forget to play with words... Words have power, and when you frequently change the vocabulary of the debate, you change the very landscape that the fight is being waged upon, more often than not in your favor. Especially use common words, evocative words, things that people will remember and quote to their friends. If something is repeated often enough, it does not matter if it is true or not - people will still believe it.

But, above all, never get greedy. Never aim for too much, never go for the whole pie all at once. You may think you have the advantage, you may think there is just a sliver of your opponent left. But the second he gets the inkling that you are going for the gold, he will fight back, just to spite you. Instead, just keep whittling away... for who can say no in the face of crying children, senseless murders, the "common good", the safety of all, and all of the various and gut-wrenching emotional ploys you can come up with?

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what the various anti-rights organizations around the country are trying to do, have been trying to do, and will continue to try to do. No, none of them are foolish enough to come out and say, "Let's just ban all the guns in the country, alright?" The hue and cry from that would amaze even me, probably. Instead, they are aiming small, tyring to implant "reasonable restritions" into the equation, trying to attach negative emotions to morally-neutral hunks of metal with phrases like "assault rifles" and "high-capacity magazines" and all the rest of that, trying to demonize law-abiding gun owners by assocating them murdering gun-owners, trying to perpetuate lies by repeating them often enough that they become common knowledge, true or not. What is worse is many, many people, even individuals outside of those organizations, will welcome those "safety measures for the common good of the children" (did I use enough catchphrases?), not realizing what they are giving up until everything is lost.

And, yes, I honestly believe that the end, driving goal of 90%, if not all, of these anti-rights, anti-guns, hoplophobic organizations out there is, indeed, the abolishion of all privately-owned firearms in America, and the complete and utter vicimization of our populace as a result. Sadly, I have nothing in the way of proof to substantiate that belief (if you have something tucked away, feel free to let me know), but all of the indications, patterns, and directions certainly do support it. And, as I have said before, those people who would disarm law-abiding individuals in the face of certain, unavoidable criminal activity are no better, no less evil, no less monstrous than the criminals themselves, and are, in fact, helping those criminals in their heinous activities.

Evil is not going to show up on our doorsteps one day, dressed in red tights, wearing a big black hat, sporting a nice, thick, curled-up-at-the-corners moustache, with a glint in its eyes, scales on its back, and a big fricking neon sign on its chest proclaiming, "Hi, my name is EVIL." Instead, it will play out much like the scenario Shepherd Book described: "They'll come at you sideways. It's how they think. It's how they move. Sidle up and smile... Hit you where you're weak." It is incumbent upon all of us liberty-loving Americans to remain vigilant and watchful over the rights that some of our fellow countrymen seem so willing to surrender, lest we awaken one day and realize we have allowed them, or, even worse, ourselves to surrender all our rights.

Trackposted to Right Pundits, Rosemary's Thoughts, A Newt One- Shared News!, Right Truth, DragonLady's World, Cao's Blog, Leaning Straight Up, Big Dog's Weblog, Adeline and Hazel, Allie is Wired, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Celebrity Smack, The Pink Flamingo, A Newt One, Dumb Ox Daily News, Stageleft, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.