http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/media/banished-for-questioning-the-gospel-of-guns.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
This is an article specific to firearms, but it speaks to a much wider problem in this country."The byline of Dick Metcalf, one of the country's pre-eminent gun journalists has gone missing. It has been removed from Guns & Ammo magazine, where his widely-read column once ran on the back page. He no longer stars on a popular television show about firearms. Gun companies have stopped flying him around the world and sending him the latest weapons to review.
In late October, Mr. Metcalf wrote a column that the magazine titled 'Let's Talk Limits,' which debated gun laws. 'The fact is,' wrote Mr. Metcalf, who has taught history at Cornell and Yale, 'all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.'
The backlash was swift, and fierce. Readers threatened to cancel their subscriptions. Death threats poured in by email. His television program was pulled from the air.
Just days after the column appeared, Mr. Metcalf said, his editor called to tell him that two major gun manufacturers had said 'in no uncertain terms' that they could no longer do business with InterMedia Outdoors, the company that publishes Guns & Ammo and co-produces his TV show, if he continued to work there. He was let go immediately...
...When writers stray from the party line promoting an absolutist view of an unfettered right to bear arms, their publications--often under pressure from advertisers--excommunicate them...
...Richard Venola, a former editor of Guns & Ammo (said): 'The time for ceding some rational points is gone.'
There have been other cases like Mr. Metcalf's. In 2012, Jerry Tsai, the editor of Recoil magazine, wrote that the Heckler & Koch MP7A1 gun, designed for law enforcement, was 'unavailable to civilians and for good reason.' He was pressured to step down, and despite apologizing, has not written since."
What did he have to apologize for--having an opinion?"In 2007, Jim Zumbo, by then the author of 23 hunting books, wrote a blog post for Outdoor Life's website suggesting that military-style rifles were 'terrorist' weapons, best avoided by hunters. His writing, television and endorsement deals were quickly put on hiatus...
...Mr. Metcalf said he...despairs that the debate over gun policy in America is so bitterly polarized and dominated by extreme voices...
...'Compromise is a bad word these days,' he said. 'People think it means giving up your principles.'...
...In the column that led to his dismissal, he said that too many gun owners believed that the constitution prohibits any regulation of firearms."
And the NRA is happy to perpetuate that myth."He noted that all rights are regulated, like freedom of speech. 'You cannot falsely and deliberately shout, "Fire!" in a crowded theater,' he wrote.
'The question is, when does regulation become infringement?' he continued. Mr. Metcalf ended the column arguing that requiring 16 hours of training to qualify for a concealed carry license was not an infringement.
Though his editors had approved the column before it went to press, they reversed course after publication. Jim Bequette, editor of Guns & Ammo, issued an apology to the magazine's roughly 400,000 readers."
What are gun manufacturers so afraid of? Do they fear that, were a more moderate voice to be heard, people would realize how strident their support for absolute and unfettered access to firearms really is?
This refusal to permit a dissenting opinion is becoming epidemic in this country, and not just among firearm advocates.
Tea Partiers listen only to other Tea Partiers. Republicans fear breaking with the party line will result in punishment from party leadership. Democrats fear that abandoning the far left for a more moderate position will earn them a "weak" tag. Conservatives get their news exclusively from Fox News, while liberals crave the re-enforcement of their opinions from MSNBC. Mainstream churches find themselves reduced by congregations who, unable to accept any but their own narrow interpretation of the Bible, remove themselves from their denominational umbrella to form their own communities.
We may look down on other cultures where disagreements seem to be answered with mass bombings and where the beheading of an enemy is casually videoed and uploaded to YouTube; but how much different are we when a simple magazine article is answered with death threats?
Acknowledging that there are differing opinions on any issue is to invite excommunication from your core group--no matter what or who that group represents. In this, a country built on the proud foundation of being the world's melting pot, the demonization of moderation is a sign of serious illness in our democracy. Only when we listen TO everyone, can we secure our preeminence as a country that is FOR everyone.
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ReplyDeleteWe mustn't forget the aspect of money here. Obviously the direction and prevailing perspective of these firearms publications is firmly under the control of the firearms manufacturers. And if any voice out there happens to have the unmitigated temerity to even suggest that there should be anything but total unfettered access (read: purchase availability) to any weapon whatsoever, then the person who expresses such an idea risks incurring the wrath of said manufacturers. It hasn't really been about actual rights for quite a while now. It's about commerce. And to keep the possibly less educated or at least more susceptible to manipulation among us thinking in terms of government conspiracies re their access to guns plays perfectly into the hands of those who just happen to make a steady handsome profit from the sale of those weapons - ALL of them. And if you are able to frame that message in terms of principle or rights or even religion - so much the better; the more difficult it is to reason with them. And in this context, any moderation in the discussion is not to be tolerated. Methinks there is also an aspect of testosterone at work here as well. Compromise is for wimps and wusses. Real men stick by their guns, remember? Ego, too is in there playing its part.
ReplyDeleteBut you are right - we've developed this tendency to only listen to like voices. This smells like insecurity to me. We're afraid that a differing opinion might sway us in a different direction and we'd have to admit that we're wrong. Heaven forbid. I also think that we feel a safety in numbers; a gravitation to the clan, the gang. That's an ancient drive. But now it's about homogenization. There is comfort in uniformity. It's too difficult to entertain too many points of view. The attack on critical thinking comes into the narrative here, but that's for a different day.