Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- Second Amendment supporters have long fought political, legislative, and legal battles to protect our freedoms. However, the cultural and financial/economic arenas are new battlegrounds where our rights are being targeted, and Second Amendment supporters are playing a great deal of catch-up in these areas.
Let’s talk culture – particularly entertainment and pop culture. The fact is, we are in a society where celebrity and media has a lot of influence. We’re used to the anti-Second Amendment bias from the news media, but healthy doses have been in pop culture going back decades – in 1949, the radio drama of “Dragnet” did an episode centered on a .22 rifle given as a Christmas gift, with the then-LAPD chief called giving firearms as a gift “folly” after the NRA protested the episode. A Batman comics storyline was used to push the first iteration of Virginia’s gun rationing scheme in the late 1980s.
It’s not just the shows – many of the stars take a hard line against our Second Amendment rights, and they have vast followings on social media. It also gets delivered from daytime talk (Rosie O’Donnell’s 1999 ambush of Tom Selleck, for instance) and even in something seemingly far from being turned into propaganda like a game show (Kim Kardashian used a “Celebrity Family Feud” appearance to donate to Bloomberg’s Everytown).
What do Second Amendment supporters have with comparable clout? We’re not going to find a lot right now, and that has been a major failing of pro-Second Amendment organizations and to a lesser extent, us. We dared Hollywood to make money without us, and they found that way, largely through China. Now, we’re going to need to find a way to get on the field and take on Hollywood.
However, do get on the field, whatever pro-Second Amendment pop culture or entertainment will need to get funding, as well as access to financial services. These days, that may not be certain – just look at Operation Chokepoint and calls for corporate gun control. But that could go for other ventures.
Pro-Second Amendment groups cannot make their case if their bank closes their account and cites “reputational risk” as the reason for doing so. Similarly, if a bank can shut down the account of someone who publishes a pro-Second Amendment comic, or the novelist who opposes a ban on modern multi-purpose semiautomatic long guns, then we are at their mercy with regards to our rights.
That situation cannot be allowed to continue, and it will likely take political and legislative action to address it. If states with pro-Second Amendment trifectas (both houses of the state legislature and a governor) move and pass laws to prohibit financial deplatforming on the basis of political opinions, we will face serious trouble. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, to its credit, is pursuing this, but the NRA and GOA need to make this a high priority at the state level.
Second Amendment supporters need to understand that the battle for our rights has become a full-spectrum conflict that doesn’t just involve political campaigns, legal action, and legislative battles – our culture and the financial industry have become battlegrounds as well. Second Amendment supporters must win across the board in order to defeat anti-Second Amendment extremism.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.