By Larry Keane
Gun control groups aren’t getting the message. Instead, they keep repeating the wrong one. Some say that’s the definition of insanity. They’re lecturing Hispanic voters, trying to sell their civilian disarmament message. It isn’t going well.
Lecturing law-abiding Americans that they need more gun control and telling them they’re wrong if they disagree is a bold strategy, especially in politics. That’s the play in Florida by gun control groups despite recent failures by those who tried the same approach. Adding identity politics only makes matters worse.
The Second Amendment is for every law-abiding American, yet Democrats in Florida are trying to push more gun control on Hispanic voters.
Strategy To Strip Rights
A recent Fox News report described how gun control groups, including Giffords political action committee, are spending big in several state and federal districts across Florida with a message to Hispanic voters. They’re preaching to them that they need more gun control. Giffords has already ponied up over $1 million urging voters to believe their message and forfeit their God-given rights.
“We think we have a real opportunity, specifically in Florida,… to really shift votes,” Giffords executive director Peter Ambler told the media.
The current anti-Second Amendment spending spree is reminiscent of recent gun control pushes spearheaded by billionaire and failed presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg. He spent more than $1 billion of his own money pushing the same gun control message, trying to flip seats for gun control in Florida, Texas, Virginia and other states. When the voters went to the polls, they roundly rejected Bloomberg’s ploy.
This time, gun control is using identity politics and focusing attention on Hispanic voters they believe will “come around” for gun control, given many fled from countries with rampant criminal gun use. The problem, though, is those countries have strict gun control, severely limiting firearm ownership. The governments have firearms and so do violent criminal cartels, but not citizens. Hispanic voters recognize the ruse for what it is.
That includes 96-year old Isabel Caballero who spoke of how Cuban dictator Fidel Castro “encouraged” Cubans to register their firearms, then used the list for confiscation.
“‘Guns, What for?’ That’s what he used to say. People turned them over, and then the only people who had guns were them,” Caballero said of Castro. “Lesson? Do not let them go.”
Voting With Their Wallets
The various gun control groups point to polling showing “gun issues” are important to Hispanic voters. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in June showed 35 percent of Hispanic voters listed “gun issues” as an issue for the government to address, compared with 18 percent in late 2021 and 10 percent in 2020.
The poll doesn’t describe what “gun issues” means. It could be that Second Amendment rights are important to those polled, not “more gun control.” Judging by firearm industry retail survey data during the years referenced, that’s likely the case.
During the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, business lockdowns, escalating calls to “defund the police” and rising neighborhood criminal violence, law-abiding Americans went on a historic firearm buying spree, including Hispanic-Americans.
The overlay of rising crime concerns for Hispanic-Americans and their firearm purchasing is a stark picture. According to NSSF retailer survey data, law-abiding Hispanic-Americans purchased firearms in 2020 at a 49 percent higher rate than they did in 2019. That swing of Hispanic-Americans’ preference even showed in the 2020 presidential election where former President Donald Trump’s message of law and order and support for the Second Amendment resonated, garnering the president 10 percent more Hispanic-American vote share than he received in 2016.
In Florida, several Republican Congressional candidates won seats from gun control Democrats and the Sunshine State broke for former president Trump by three percent.
Lone Star Harbinger
Gun control groups have a track record of forcing their message for gun restrictions on voters, rather than listening to them. That was most recently the case in Florida’s neighbor to the west, Texas.
All the Florida Cubans need to do is refer to that famous Elian Gonzales raid photograph to understand why gun control is evil.
Or their own Cuban history. Cubans aren’t as stupid as the Left believes they are.
Blacks are buying guns in record numbers no matter what Jessie Jackson and his Rainbow/PUSH has done
We damn sure need some gun safety and gun control. What we need to do, though, is focus on the guns that cause the problems, and those would be the guns used by criminals. Maybe harsh penalties (not no-bail release, light sentences, forgiveness, release from prison) for gun crimes or use of a gun in a crime would direct the attention more to the point where it would do the most good: the criminal.
You can make all the gun-free zones you want; criminals will violate them and commit crimes.
You can restrict the lawful purchases of as many guns as you like; criminals will obtain them illegally and commit crimes.
You conduct buy-backs and firearm surrenders as much as you feel like; criminals will hold on to theirs, get more and commit crimes with them.
You can confiscate all the guns; criminals will get them from foreign sources because we have a wide-open, unsecured southern border that everything from guns, drugs and human beings is trafficked freely across it.
You can totally eliminate guns altogether; criminals will use knives, hatchets, manchettes, bats, hammers, chains, iron bars and anything else handy to commit crimes. The complexity of the weapon they use doesn’t matter; all their victims will be disarmed and helpless.
It’s probably not a good idea to suggest eliminating self defense to people who have just fled from areas where a totalitarian government has disarmed the public and oppressed them. But, leftists assume everyone is dumber than they are.