Our job is to re-educate these people!
In order for that to work, we'd have to educate ourselves first and that can be a daunting proposition.
I often see the point made that we rely on facts while the opposition relies on distortions and emotion. For the most part, I'd go along with that. But in the interest of accuracy:
First: What happened in the UK and Australia were not "confiscations". "Confiscations" are uncompensated seizures (think Katrina). The owners in the UK and Oz were compensated.
I've heard some justify the use of the word by noting that it was involuntary or that the owners were not universally pleased with the size or promptness of their checks but this is, basically, a dodge. The best reason for misuse of the term is that it probably generates a couple extra bucks when the plate is passed. The plain and simple truth is that the two biggest examples of "confiscations" that we talk about are as bogus as "cop killer bullets" and "invisible ceramic guns".
Second: I'd rather take a molten lead enema than hear one more time that banning handguns in the UK caused gun crime to go up but this is, no doubt, a forlorn hope.
Handguns were banned in the UK. Gun crime in the UK has risen. There is no way in creation these events are connected. Why? Because there were no defensive handgun uses in the UK for years preceeding the ban. Taking away a means of defense that didn't exist in the first place does not embolden the criminal. Stating that one led to the other makes us look like we're incapable of discerning concurrency from causation.
Third: The "Ed Chenel warning to yanks" chain email is riddled with problems and ten years old anyway. We need to collectively learn a little restraint with respect to the "forward" button on our email clients. When this restraint fails one of our own, the recipient should exercise restraint in not posting it on internet gun boards like it was not only new but the embodiment of the Revealed Word.
The irony, of course, is that we give the home grown antis a free ride by not raising the monetary cost issues of their plans (those forthcoming enough to admit to wanting a handgun turn-in). I've actually had several decide health care might be a better investment for the trillion dollars that isn't there anyway. Facts are our friends. The opposition has already laid claim to breathless hyperbole and baseless conclusions - we probably couldn't use them as effectively anyway.
There are lessons to be learned from the UK - but it was too late way earlier than they indicate. They lost the schools and the media a lot earlier than we did. I'd expect that by sheer numbers we're OK for most of those here but a couple of generations will put us on the UK's path. We've lost the schools - kids are being raised to see no valid use in firearms by teachers and, more rarely, health care providers. I have no idea how to reverse it. If your grandkids think guns are icky and grab them up with tongs like they would a 42 ounce maggot, to haul off for disposal, paying off the remainder will be pretty easy.
