Pro-gun propagandists using Native Americans as pawns for their media war

[Redfairen]

GREELEY, Colo. - Two Greeley billboards on which images of Native Americans are used to make a pro-gun rights argument are causing a stir with some residents who say the image is offensive and insensitive. The billboards show three men dressed in traditional Native American attire and the words "Turn in your arms. The government will take care of you."

According to the Greeley Tribune, Matt Wells, an account executive with Lamar Advertising, says a group of local residents purchased the space.

Greeley resident Kerri Salazar, who is of Native American descent, says she was livid when she learned about it. She said she doesn't have a problem with the apparently pro-gun rights message, she's offended the Native American people were singled out, apparently without their consent.

7NEWS spoke with representatives from the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners group who say they know the people responsible for the billboard, but would not reveal their identities.

"These are private citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to defend their gun rights," said Cooper Anderson, operations director for Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.


http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/state-news/native-americans-incensed-over-pro-gun-billboard

[Coyotl]

1. Turn in your guns and stay on your reservations or you will be killed

That was the reality for Native Americans, white men with guns and genocide exterminating them.

I don't know how this message could be more insulting to Natives?

[Phillip McCleod]

4. i know how it could be more insulting..

..by noting that the billboard is in Greely.. named after Horace Greely the yellow journalist/publisher who fanned the flames of anti-native violence .. the original 'red scare' .. at the end of the 19th century.

greely was also good buds with Meeker.. of the famous Meeker 'massacre' in which Meeker was so cruel to the Utes they eventually staked him to the ground through the mouth to 'stop his infernal lying'. within a few years all the ute would be forced from the state into utah, nm and az. there's still no reservation in CO.

the ute, btw had lived in the colorado rockies for maybe 10,000 years before Greely and his ilk came along with their Sand Creek massacre and laws *requiring* U.S. citizens to *kill* any native found outside 'indian territory'. scalps could be used to prove the done deed.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. Fast majority of people, including Native Americans, are most likely unaware of the history

you cited.

I have seen a lot of similar sentiments all over the reservations out west.

[HappyMe]

5. That's kind of how I read it.

White people with guns take your land and herd you onto reservations.

Very, very insulting to Native Americans.

[Robb]

2. These same assholes keep popping up:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12621719

[ZombieHorde]

3. I really wish gun-rights folks would address actual policies being proposed,

instead of some fringe "policy" that would never see the light of day.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. Some of those fringe polices are have been openly advocated on DU and by pols

Confiscation among others.

The long term pro gun rights people here are pretty moderate and support things like UBCs

[ZombieHorde]

9. There are many fringe opinions on DU.

Last edited Tue Apr 30, 2013, 05:31 PM - Edit history (1)

I support public nudity and the legalization of all drugs. Those are fringe positions.

I agree that many pro-gun DUers hold moderate positions, but I still see the term "gun grabber" thrown around, which only applies to a small percentage of DUers.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

12. There certainly are some here

and if you look at participation in threads, both groups seem to have larger numbers that would be true.

[krispos42]

22. It's not outside the realm of possibility...

....although probably not in the way you think.

The traditional fear among the militia types is black-clad ATF agents kicking in doors and seizing guns. This would of course be bullshit.

But, let's say that we have universal background checks which result in de-facto gun registration whenever a gun is sold.

Okay,then one day, a few years from now, a state decides to outlaw a class of guns. Pick a class: handguns, semiautomatic rifles, "assault weapons" of one type or another, etc.

They outlawed weapons become grandfathered to their current owners, but cannot be transferred under any means to anybody else in the state except the government or a licensed gun dealer. Maybe with compensation, maybe not.

This would effectively be long-term confiscation, as it not only prohibits new of the banned types from being sold, but sets up a system where the old ones are systematically removed from circulation. A person that tried to sell one of the now-banned guns would not be able to because the background check system would prevent the sale.

It would be very slow-motion, but I do not put it outside the possibility of being implemented. I believe that California already has such a system in place with what they define as "assault weapons", which were registered prior to a certain date, and cannot be transferred except to a gun dealer anymore.

[ZombieHorde]

23. Sure, that could happen, but it is not what is being advocated.

I support background checks, but I am very much against confiscation, except for individual cases; e.g., convicted, violent criminals. Just because I support some firearm regulation doesn't mean I support the most extreme stances on the issue.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. Related thread here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022772735

[JaneyVee]

10. Who's asking to turn in guns? We're asking for universal background checks.

[hack89]

13. There are a surprising number of posters here that advocate confiscation in various forms

I understand that it is unrealistic fringe view but it is part of the public discussion.

[JaneyVee]

14. I'm talking about lawmakers. I doubt the owners of that billboard read DU.

But this is the problem with the gun-nuts, they equate background checks with gun-grabbing. They are paranoid extremists.

[hack89]

15. If that 90% support for background checks is actually true

then the majority of gun owners support background checks. The "gun-nuts" are a small fringe group.

[JaneyVee]

16. I agree, they definitely are a small fringe. But they have loud, stupid voices.

[frylock]

17. what legislative power do those posters have?

[hack89]

18. None - but they are part of the public discourse

and they desire to influence the legislative process if they could.

It is not an issue if the desires of gun control groups start and end with universal background checks.

[Savannahmann]

11. Here is another example of what I've been talking about

The RW has a message they get out, and it's constantly evolving, and changing. Each new claim, every day, or week, strikes a cord. We find it insulting. I'll even agree that most Native Americans would find it insulting. However, to the average person driving by, or seeing this outrage on the web, or TV, a small part of them says yep, that is kind of what happened.

We disarmed the tribes, and sent them to live in abject poverty on the most worthless land we could find. If it turned out not to be worthless, ala the Black Hills, where gold was found, then we just move them again.

So what answer do we have? Statistics about the 90% who support background checks. Our message never evolvs, it just changes the victim we highlight. Next week, the RW will make another outragous claim, or statement, and we will reply with the same old tired statistics, while the debate and the issue is lost.

The RW doesn't repeat their claims, it is always shifting, changing, and fluid. If we do manage to counter one, dozens of other points go unanswered. We need to get serious about the issues that matter to us, because we're getting our asses kicked.

[Erose999]

19. Since when did RW gun dickheads ever care about the Native Americans though? The Natives would have

been eliminated one way or another anyway since the power and money in society at that time was behind it. Had the Natives held on to their guns and fought it out it might have went worse for them than it did.

Meanwhile these RW dickheads are pursuing their own agenda of eliminating groups they find to be "undesirables" by cutting the social safety net, worker's rights, etc.

[Savannahmann]

21. It doesn't matter if they care, or not.

The point is that the message will resonate with a percentage of the population. It only matters that the idea will go out there that giving up guns, at any level, for any reason is bad.

There is roughly twenty percent of the population that oscillates back and forth, from Republican to Democratic. With Reagan, the majority were Republican. With Clinton, most were Democratic. Then back, and then back the other way again. So those people don't think that the Republicans are evil bastards bent on destroying the world. Any more than they think we are Socialist nuts determined to create the Soviet States of America.

Those twenty percent folks are the ones who decide most of the issues. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you live in the district of a Republican Congressman. He votes the way you want on every issue, votes to give money to Planned Parenthood, Votes to strengthen hate crime legislation. He might as well be a Democrat as far as his votes are concerned. We would still vote for the Democratic Challenger. Because the voting in of Democrats is one of our core principals. The same holds true for Republicans. They loved Zell Miller, who was slightly right of the Kaiser, but had he run for re-election, the Republicans would still have voted for the Republican candidate.

It's the twenty percent that make the difference, and those are the ones we need to reach. We don't do it by shouting slogans, or screaming about statistics, or parading victims of gun violence. We do it by learning our history, studying the topics, and learning all the arguments, not just a couple polls. The Rethugs were claiming Constitutionally protected rights, and we were talking about 90%. They were talking about individual liberty, and we were parading Mrs. John Doe who lost her child to gun violence. The twenty percent only saw that from us, and saw the shallow argument we seemed to have for the issue. The impression that most of the folks I'm talking about had was that we didn't have much of an argument to make, but the RW did.

I have been beating the drum of better debating, better more informed discussions, and better more informed expression of our ideals. All anyone on our side wants to do is follow the same old plan, because according to legend, it worked once upon a time.

[Bandit]

25. Well if we could send all Republicans to select reservations and treat them like we did the Indians

I would say they had a point, however.....They are as usual just plain full of bullshit...

[Savannahmann]

29. It doesn't matter if they are

What matters is the effectiveness of their approach. It's working for them, and ours is not working for us.

[MisterP]

20. heck, just last week they were comparing themselves to Poles who hid Jews from the Nazis

of course, they're more like Konrad Henlein & co., saying that the Germans were being constantly oppressed by Slavs, from Marburg to Posen, so anything the Germans did was self-defense

[sakabatou]

24. That's disgusting.

[tularetom]

26. What that says to me is don't let the government fuck you over like they did to the Native Americans

It seems more of a slam against the white man (US government) than the indigenous people who believed the white man and got screwed.

I don't necessarily agree with it in any case, but apparently others interpret it differently.

[Paladin]

27. As if the right-wing gun militancy movement gives half a fuck about Native Americans. (nt)

[Taverner]

28. Of course. It was actually easy access to guns that killed the remainder of the "indians"

After our diseases and flawed economic model didn't decimate them out right...