Gun Control Playbook - In Their Own Words (update 3)

Have you ever wondered what is in the "other team's" playbook? Have you wondered if there is a manual? Well, there is for gun control advocates. 

[UPDATES 1 & 2 are added at bottom]

For years, I and other gun-owners have wondered whether two things existed within the gun-control community:

1) A "manual" or "best practices" publication and/or private web site that instructs new entrants to advocacy on how to conduct themselves in public, and

2)  An organized communication network among gun-control advocacy groups that is not open to public scrutiny and through which they can share strategies based on the latest developments or events. 

Now, there is nothing wrong with either of the above and I am not suggesting that the existence of either or both is somehow nefarious. While I find little common ground with most gun-control advocates (or gun-prohibitionists as I refer to those who would ban all firearms, legal or otherwise), they can do whatever they want as long as it is legal. For sure, there are more than enough websites, blogs, forums and the like in gun-rights circles so neither group has an exclusive on trying to coordinate their collective message. 

The reason I and others have wondered about this is also two-fold. First, most organized gun-control efforts look and sound alike in their public manifestations. The words, sounds, images all reflect a very similar messaging, both in the rhetoric and the images. For what are obstensibly "grass roots" efforts, there is a commonality across these efforts that belie their independent nature. I have observed several efforts arise since the massacre in Newtown that went from appearing amatuerish to very polished in short periods of time. March for Change comes to mind as one such organization, particularly after they allied themselves with the 20-year-old group Connecticut Against Gun Violence (CAGV). Again, nothing wrong with March choosing a well-established "mentor" organization, but the maturing of their effort seemed to be hastened by somethiing. 

The second observation is that there very often appears to be coordination of messaging among gun-control advocates when the "battles" become heated (i.e. post Aurora, post Newtown). It reminds me of the JournoList phenomena which you can read about here but where the messaging of the left-of-center types was coordinated through a secret, non-public forum where ideas were shared and policies coordinated. Again, nothing wrong with that but it was curious. The best example that I can give is the near instanteous correction by gun-control advocates of their erroneous use of "high capacity clips" or "high capacity ammo" to the correct "high capacity magazines". Many in the gun-rights community pouned on the erroneous usage to ridicule those who used the terms in dismissive ways and it was obvious. Then, in the span of several days, gun-control advocates and like-minded politicians all across the country, but particularly in CT, dropped "clips" and began using "magazines". It was as if a corrective "memo went out" and was most evident at the late January hearing in Hartford where every gun-control advocate who spoke used "large capacity ammunition magazines" in their testimony. This included some of the same women who I had heard use "clips" in public forums (Wilton, Redding, etc.) in the weeks leading up to the hearings. Without question, such spontaneous change in messaging had a feeling of being coordinated from a central source. 

Then again, such a "system" is not all-inclusive since it appears some "did not get the memo":

Ban on Large-Capacity Ammo Clips Passes City Council, Goes to Mayor 

Blumenthal plans to offer amendment on high-capacity clips

N.J. Assembly, Senate gun measures at odds on high-capacity clips

So while what I am about to discuss is not necessarily a "Eureka" moment, the public emergence of a gun-control messaging manual certainly verifies at least one of the suspicions above. Last night, the national Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) has found and made available the Holy Grail of gun-control messaging, "Preventing Gun Violence Through Effective Messaging" which you can download here. This "manual" is based on what appears to be extensive public opinion research, linguistic analysis, psychology and Madison Avenue worth message imagery. Which is not a surprise given the authors hail from OMP (a strategic marketing firm), KNP Comminications and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a research and consulting firm. What I would like to know is, given the costs involved, who sponsored and paid for this effort?

UPDATE3: The Examiner reports "The consultant firm, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (GQR) has developed PR campaigns for other leftwing groups such as Planned Parenthood, National Public Radio, the Joyce Foundation, and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns." This explains much, but not who actually paid for this work. 

This 80-page publication carries a 2012 copyright and was apparently written after Tuscon and Aurora (both mentioned) but before Newtown (unmentioned). Thus, if you take the time to read it, it should prove an interesting exercise to see how the "advice" given in the manual compares to the rhetoric and efforts that arose after Newtown. [see note at bottom of this post]

The first thing to notice is the title of the piece which is "Preventing Gun Violence...". Leafing through it, it could just as accurately been titled "Controlling All Gun Ownership...". Don't take my word for it, this is a manual intended for those who seek to limit the lawful ownership of firearms as well as to attempt to address illegal handguns (actually responsible for 80%+ of all non-suicide gun violence). And this helps explain why so many organization have used "gun violence" in their names rather than "gun control". You will see. 

Candidly, I have not had a chance to read this end to end but the summary of the research up front is worth highlighting here.

THE OVERALL LANDSCAPE1. Advocates for gun violence prevention win the logical debate, but lose on more emotional terms.
2. There is an intensity gap that has built up over years. In the general public, those who view themselves as supporters of gun rights are more deeply committed to and emotionally invested in their position than those supporting stronger gun violence prevention measures.
3. Generally speaking, people are unfamiliar with – and surprised to learn – how easy current laws make it to acquire guns and carry loaded weapons.
4. There is wide personal experience with gun violence. 40% of respondents report that they or someone they know personally has been a victim of gun violence.

KEY MESSAGES

1. Three key themes drive the most powerful arguments for gun violence prevention:


ONE: The serious personal toll that gun violence takes on people’s lives.

TW0: People’s right to be free from violence in their communities.

THREE: The changing nature of weapons towards more powerful, military-style ones that make us less safe.
2. The notion that today’s weapons are different in kind from what was available in the past is an especially powerful idea and helps make the case for new levels of concern and scrutiny around access to weapons.
Do these points sound familiar? They do to me. 

Worth noting is that, prior to the past couple of years, I had NEVER heard a gun-control advocate make an issue of the Second Amendment and the Framers not appreciating the march of technology vis-a-vis the "destructive power" (another common phrase) of today's civilian weapons. It is only in the post-Newtown era that this became a common rhetorical argument of gun-control advocates. That last point in the manual explains this. That the point is totally fallacious given that semi-automatic weapons were introduced around 1900 and the AR-15 was introduced to civilians in 1967. And forget the fact that an AR-15 style rifle is almost never used by criminals and that such a rifles was not used in a mass shooting until 2007; facts seem to not matter to the manual writers. 

I will provide one or more updates to this post as I go through this material. For now, jumping off the pages at me as examples of really insightful rhetoric are these two items:

It’s not just about words. Powerful and emotionally-engaging images are vitally important reinforcers of strong messages. For example, intimidating images of military-style weapons help bring to life the point that we are dealing with a different situation than in earlier times.


ALWAYS FOCUS ON EMOTIONAL AND VALUE-DRIVENARGUMENTS ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE, NOT THE POLITICALFOOD FIGHT IN WASHINGTON OR WONKY STATISTICS. (uppercase in original)
That is all I have in me for the moment. By all means, access the publication and read through it for yourself. I do not know where CCRKBA got access to the "manual" but I am sure some in the gun-control movement will not be too happy to know that this work is now out in "the wild". 

For those in the gun-rights community, this publication should be "must read" material to show you how well messages are being managed, how well that messaging is back on sound research and marketing practicies. But most importantly for those in the gun-rights community, knowing how opposing messages are framed can help in the crafting your own messages going forward. 

===
UPDATE 1: One of the results of the research has been supported by the May Pew Poll. The "manual" points out:

There is an intensity gap that has built up over years. In the general public, those who view themselves as supporters of gun rights are more deeply committed to and emotionally invested in their position than those supporting stronger gun violence prevention measures. (bold face in original text)

The biggest difference is in the area of making contributions to activist organizations: 25% of those who prioritize gun rights say they have, at some point, contributed money to an organization that takes a position on the issue, but just 6% of those who prioritize gun control have done so, according to our May survey.

Also, among those who prioritize gun rights, 41% say they would not vote for a candidate with whom they disagreed on gun policy, even if they agreed with the candidate on most other issues. Fewer gun control supporters (31%) say gun policy is a make-or-break voting issue for them.

But don’t worry, gun control advocates, Senator Reid says it’s just a temporary setback.

“I think sometime next year we’ll revisit that issue. I’m almost certain of it,” Reid (D-Nev.) told the group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, according to a reporter for The Nation who was allowed to sit in on the meeting.

Sure, because an election year is one where trying to enact controversial gun control legislation has always been a proven recipe for electoral success.