As commenter “eddie g” stated,
People don’t trust the NRA or so we are told (Hell we don’t trust the NRA.) Imagine if they started to move money to proxy groups that hid their allegiance, as in the John Glenn Institute. They do it and get an op-ed mention in an on-line paper, the NRA does it…..front page news on every liberal rag in America!
The Geek responded:
Unfortunately, the NRA is a monolith, and a single source to boot.
In memetic warfare, a distributed proxy attack from all angles is much more effective than a single large thrust from a monolithic source that can be dismissed.
The NRA can do PR to counter each and every message, but if you’ve managed to convince Joe & Jane Normal that the NRA is full of it, NO message gets through.
Which is a good reason to also support groups like Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, The Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners of America, The Pink Pistols, etc.
But the Geek is certainly correct in his original assertion that “It’s a lot harder to dismiss The Univ of X, Univ of Y, Univ of Z, and so on.”
Which brings up MY follow-up on this topic, or actually Antonio Ciaccia’s. Seems he got a response from Prof. Cornell, which was posted at the OSU group blog The Open End. Mr. Ciaccia quite handily dismembered Prof. Cornell’s reply.
Note that one of Prof. Cornell’s arguments is this:
You do not seem to be aware that the NRA created a professorship in 2nd Amendment law at GM Law school that has a clear litmus test for the holder of the chair. The holder must support the individual rights view! Are you going to attack them for doing what you claim we have done?
Antonio’s response to that:
As for your problem with the NRA setting up a professorship, I go to Ohio State, and this is an Ohio State newspaper. We deal with matters on this campus. And what we know on this campus is that you were named dircetor(sic) of a policy institute funded by the Joyce Foundation with suspect agendas to boot. Passing blame to another is no way to cover yourself (see: fallacy of tu quoque).
He shoots, he SCORES! (Read the whole thing.) But it does illustrate “eddie g’s” point.