Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
“We are so excited to announce that former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords will serve as the 2023 Grand Marshal,” the Rose Parade revealed Thursday. “Gabby’s remarkable recovery from traumatic injuries epitomizes the 2023 theme, ‘Turning the Corner.’ Gabby will ride in the 134th Rose Parade presented by Honda and join in the pre-game celebration of the 109th Rose Bowl Game, both held on January 2, 2023.”
Acclaim on the Facebook page was overwhelming and enthusiastic.
“Great choice!” “Fantastic choice!” “Wonderful choice!” “Such a great selection!” were typical superlatives allowed in “comments,” with scarcely a discouraging word on why it might be an objectionable pick for millions of gun-owning Americans who disagree.
“Will the parade be on network TV or just on streaming? on HGTV without commercials?” one fan asked.
“The parade will be broadcast on ABC, KTLA, NBC, and RFD-TV,” the Rose Parade administrator replied.
That’s a lot of free publicity that will be saturating the airwaves and cable. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A Google search shows the story is being promoted by The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and countless other media outlets. As the story spreads, try finding a “news” organization that’s not covering it, including wall-to-wall coverage leading up to, during, and after parade day.
And for icing on the cake, the story is trending on Twitter.
While the Rose Parade’s rather tepid statement, that the honor is for recovery and “turning the corner,” find a “news” story that doesn’t present Giffords’ “gun safety” efforts in glowing terms—along with one other significant mention. Case in point (and setting the tone), the aforementioned WaPo, ever the water carrier for Democrats and the citizen disarmament agenda, notes:
“Giffords is a gun safety advocate who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this year. Giffords’ husband, Democrat Mark Kelly, is running for reelection to the U.S. Senate from Arizona.”
They presume undermining “the security of a free State” by disarming their countrymen will result in safety, even though they can point to no such outcome after decades of trying. They also just gave Kelly’s political campaign a favorable-by-association media boost that will be seen by millions, but conveniently won’t set off Federal Election Commission in-kind contribution alarms.
This is managed news, that is, propaganda and free publicity designed to sway political sentiment on a massive scale. And it’s but another pile-on that dominates the public discourse outside of the “gun rights” niche, where well-documented media bias against guns ensures the “pro-gun” side will never get commensurate favorable exposure and will instead be refused ad buys, stifled on social media, and aggressively censored by government in spite of supposed First Amendment protections.
The current reality that is likely to continue: If gun owners come across information on “pro-RKBA” websites ignored by “mainstream” outlets – or information that counters the citizen disarmament narrative being pushed and parroted – the only way others will learn about it is if they share it. Regrettably, only a fraction will make the effort to do that on a regular basis, while groups like Giffords, Everytown, and Brady United, with 501(c) (3) and (4) entities reporting millions upon millions of dollars in assets, will continue to receive more than that in free publicity that gun owner advocacy groups couldn’t buy.
And more than that – it shapes the public discourse by repeating loaded terms like “assault weapon” and “commonsense gun safety laws” ad nauseam, which readers here can see through quickly enough, but low-information voters will not.