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.
Blah blah blah. Always yapping about what “2A supporters MUST do”.
Withdraw consent to be governed and be done with it.
We may just have to start our own parallel economy. Our own banks, our own transportation companies, our own social media platforms, our own utilities…
As I thought about more and more things we would have to add to that list, it began to sound more and more like secession.
There’s a movement afoot out here in the west where rather than secession, there’s counties in Oregon, 3-I think, have voted in the majority to secede from Oregon and merge into Idaho.
If they are successful, half of Washington State would immediately start to do the same. Eastern Washington has wanted for decades to exercise itself from Washington and become a complete new state. That idea will never come to fruition, but the realignment of the states make sense to me and it should be attempted.
Well, if Lincoln could make a separate State(West Virginia) out of the western part of Virginia, I guess it would be OK for counties to secede to another adjoining State!
What utter nonsense.
Lincoln did not “make a separate State(West Virginia) out of the western part of Virginia.”
Presidents don’t create states; Congress does – upon application of the proposed new state. Read ARTICLE IV, SECTION 3, CLAUSE 1 and get back to us when you grasp it.
Counties are created and controlled by the state legislature.
We dealt with secession in 1861. Do try to keep up.
No need to be rude about it.
Well brother… those two others had little knowledge of the Constitution, but this one could have taken rude lessons from them.
Time and his errors will tell.
Vermont left New York by secession and Congress and the president backed the play.
West Va seceding from Va is an anomaly because Va. had seceded from the Union, but Congress and the president backed that play, also
It’s happening right now. Like him or not, Dan Bongino is a pioneer in the parallel economy and he spends considerable time on his radio broadcast and podcasts explaining that now is the time to establish yourselves on these platforms. I hope more folks pick up the pace transitioning to the Freedom and Liberty sites before economic hardship reigns down upon them. This credit card merchant code tyranny hopefully has awoken many vendors who had their heads down doing their business hoping the Feds would leave them alone…surprise, surprise, surprise. Now what are we gonna do? Three choices, quit, fight,… Read more »
It is probably just as well that the NRA isn’t doing anything related to RKBA when you consider the history and track record of the NRA. Let’s consider the NRA’s major accomplishments at the national level…. 1934 the NRA led the battle for (not against) the National Firearms Act 1938 the NRA led the battle for (not against) the Federal Firearms Act 1968 the NRA supported the Gun Control Act 1986 the NRA supported the Hughes Amendment and the misnamed Firearms Owners Protection Act 1994 the NRA withdrew opposition to the Assault Weapons Ban once the 10-year expiration was added… Read more »
Sine the NRA is not our friend, we should support other organizations. Whatever good the NRA is doing, they can do it better and not stab us in the back.
HLB
Harold, did you have a stroke yesterday? This article is an unreadable hot mess.
For once I agree with Harold, we must think beyond politics and law; maybe the overthrow of a tyrannical government…
I agree with you on strategy, but that is not what I took away from Harold’s article. I took away…well, nothing. He really did not say much of anything.
He NEVER does.
Harold is parroting the late Andrew Breitbart, who famously and correctly claimed “Politics is downstream from culture.” Until we fix the cultural mess, we’re just burning rubber getting nowhere.
Reading Harold today, has anyone else thought that a good Proof Reader should be necessary before publishing articles like this?
The only thing beyond politics and law is armed confrontation. Politics is a representation of culture and expresses it with legislation. Law, our only peaceable alternative, is what the courts decide it is. You’re making it look mighty dark, Harold.
This matter was spelled years ago. No matter how many people still claim Ukraine is winning.
People tend to know when a Dick is being shoved up their ass. Don’t piss down our backs & tell us it’s raining.
What has Ukraine got to do with the above article?