The Myth of Effective Gun Rallies - #2A
Why Most Gun Rallies Don’t Do Anything
A thought-provoking article from Kit Perez at the Shepard Scale - DD
Every year, in a state with a long and conflicted gun-rights history, thousands of people gather for a gun rally.
They come from surrounding regions. They open-carry, bring their flags, wear statement T-shirts, and roll deep in group formation. There are speeches, chants, photos, and a kind of reverent celebration of patriot identity. It’s a good time; I used to go to that particular rally every year.
People make lots of contacts. They might even come away with a few new recruits for their group.
When the rally ends, people go home.
No laws change.
No pressure campaigns follow.
No institutional leverage is gained.
But people leave feeling like they did something.
The problem is that feelings don’t get the work done.
The Illusion of Political Theater
Rallies feel productive because they produce:
High emotional arousal: unity, anger, righteousness
Peer affirmation: “I’m not alone.”
Visual documentation/validation: “See, look at how popular this belief is and how many of us there are.”
Identity reinforcement: “I belong to something bigger than myself.”
This has short-term psychological utility, and offers people a way to put more weight on the validation side of the scale that balances their validation with their shame. In short, if you break it all down and people are brutally self-honest, these…
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our local NA Unit, Tampa FL & St Petersburg, 1990s, provided security for DD...60% of us were combat veterans...im 70 now, 100% disabled army veteran..all I can say is now I write on web sites...I live in remote Montana...& grow my own food..I knew Bo Gritz, & most of Montana Militia..1980s..