Via Bill Quick, I see a wonderful opportunity for wolves who like to dress in sheep's clothing (hmmm.... maybe that's only-in-San Francisco sheep in wolves' clothing....):

San Francisco supervisors want voters to approve a sweeping handgun ban that would prohibit almost everyone except law enforcement officers, security guards and military members from possessing firearms in the city.

The measure, which will appear on the municipal ballot next year, would bar residents from keeping guns in their homes or businesses, Bill Barnes, an aide to Supervisor Chris Daly, said Wednesday. It would also prohibit the sale, manufacturing and distribution of handguns and ammunition in San Francisco, as well as the transfer of gun licenses.

Barnes said the initiative is a response to San Francisco's skyrocketing homicide rate, as well as other social ills. There have been 86 murders in the city so far this year compared to 70 in all of 2003.

Dianne Feinstein tried a similar hare-brained scheme back in 1982, and it was promptly thrown out by the California Supreme Court. (More modern fallout here.) However, the struggle against San Francisco gun control was what led to a new phenomenon: open left-wing and libertarian defiance of the politically correct agenda, and the birth of openly pro-Second Amendment homosexuals, a phenomenon best known today as gay gun nuts.

The point is not whether this unconstitutional ordinance will pass. I think it will. The point is, it is a major propaganda opportunity for gun owners and Second Amendment supporters to show brazen, politically incorrect defiance in the belly of the beast. But most important of all, it presents an opportunity to smash the stereotype of gun owners as ignorant, stupid, trailer park wife-beaters.

This is not a new topic for me, but I think it's important enough to return to something I wrote last year about the use of theatrical tactics to win the war against stereotypes. As I explained in a somewhat long post, what worked for pit bulls can be made to work for guns:

Twenty or so years ago, the Berkeley City Council considered one of those onerous breed-specific bans which would have outlawed pit bulls. I had been breeding and selling puppies and I knew enough local owners of a more or less theatrical bent that I was able to throw together a small (mostly gay) group to demonstrate with cute pit bulls and cutesy signs saying things like "DON'T KILL MY PUPPY!" and "I ('heart') MY PIT BULL!"

A couple of councilmembers I knew saw this on their way in and sheepishly came over. They said we needn't have gone to all the trouble, that they would never enact the ban. That they just didn't know that "we" cared so much. That all we needed to do was call. Over the years, I have seen the pit bull metamorphose from the poor Southern "white-trash" dog-fighting stereotype, to the urban ghetto crack dealer dog-fighting, child-killing stereotype, and now, to my amazement, to a celebrity hipster, trendy loveable dog stereotype. The other pit bull stereotypes, of course, are still to be found. But my point is, now you have Los Angeles actresses, San Francisco pierced kids, lesbian skateboarders, and hipsters of all varieties walking these adorable dogs around. In places where this has happened, they cannot, and will not, be banned. Moreover, once you involve hip celebrities, you make it tougher and tougher for any large city to enact anti-pit bull legislation. Indeed, having, say, Rosie Perez walk into a City Council hearing with her pit bull to the flashes of the photographers makes such legislation all but impossible. In contrast to the old days, there are now hip, dedicated, political organizations like this one.

At this rate, the lowly pit bull might once again become a breed loved by the middle class.

Get to know one of these dogs. You might find yourself charmed. Even, disarmed!

"Disarming" works both ways.

Just as pit bull owners were once invariably shown as antisocial if not psychotic misfits, gun owners are painted as anything but hip. In some ways, this unfair stereotyping is made easier by the fact that owning a gun is now considered a right wing act. Never mind the fact that Rosie O'Donnell, Dianne Feinstein, Sean Penn and other big liberals carry guns; they don't admit it publicly. Instead, they think they are in a different league from everyone else and that their gun ownership is not real gun ownership. (This reminds me of religious mullahs who feel justified in executing homosexuals for admitting to something which they deny doing even as they do it.)

Gun ownership needs to be made at least as cool as owning a pit bull. There are many bloggers who do a great job of doing this in their own way -- Glenn Reynolds, Rachel Lucas, Jeff Soyer, Eugene Volokh, and Kim du Toit (even if he wants me to fuck off and die) are all outstanding examples. (What I would like to know, is how does one get Reynolds, Lucas, and actor James Woods on the board of the NRA? Believe me, I am deadly serious.)

Everyone has a different style though. This being a media war and a propaganda war, intelligence and style are everything.

Homosexuals, whether you like them or not, are hopelessly wedded to the middle class. Through a poorly understood, tough-to-explain form of symbiotic shamanism, they are both followers and leaders of the middle class. They decorate the houses, wait the tables in expensive restaurants, teach the kids, sell the makeup and perfume at Macys, style the hair, write the scripts for the shows on TV, tell people what to wear, help women lose weight, and assist generally with countless other middle-class-bolstering pastimes. I really don't like the stereotype because I don't fit it, but it really doesn't matter whether I or anyone likes it, because the close connection between homosexuals and middle class America is there, and ineradicable.

What is not ineradicable is the illogical tendency of homosexuals (and many other trendy types) to dislike guns, and consider them un-cool, un-hip, un-stylish. Every homosexual like Jeff Soyer is a dagger in the heart of the plan to disarm middle America. Because of this, those who want to arm middle America would do well to remember that the Second Amendment is no one's exclusive turf, nor should it be a battleground for culture wars which, if they must be fought at all, are best fought in some other arena.

One last observation: I am in no way suggesting that homosexuals are better qualified or more capable of leading the opposition to gun control. Such a thing would be as absurd as suggesting that they lead the country away from draconian anti-pit bull legislation. I am saying that they are a useful, very disarming weapon to confuse, frustrate (and, well, even emasculate) the politically correct -- and they counter a ridiculous, deliberately misleading stereotype which has not been countered, and which often turns off the middle class.

Isn't the Second Amendment more important than the preservation of a stereotype?

I mean, I can carry on at length in this blog about gun statistics, how they're misused, the intent of the founding fathers that every man be armed, the racist history of gun control, etc., till I'm blue in the face. But we are not dealing with rational arguments or rational people. (If we were, acrimonious debating would be the exception and not the rule.) Rather, we live in a world run mostly by power seekers, power holders, media manipulators, and cultural ideologues. The vast majority of people are made to sit and watch or listen with what little time is left to them when they aren't working. They like underdogs, and they dislike being preached to. And they tire of seeing victimhood glorified by people who ride victim status all the way to power. (Dianne Feinstein is a good example, touched on in the comments here.) If there's one thing professional victims can't stand, it's having their audience -- the ordinary people too busy to dress up and play victim -- see the tables turned on them. Gun owners, stereotyped as stupid and brutal by these professional "victims," have a wonderful opportunity to show that the stereotypes are wrong, and that owning guns does not lower one's IQ!

So, it's not whether or not the situation in San Francisco is "hopeless."

Pyrrhic victories are always found in "hopeless" situations.

Let the gun control people revel in their symbolic victory, while their symbology is destroyed from within.

POINT OF ORDER: I want it noted that in calling the San Francisco scheme a "hare-brained" one, I am with the solid Google majority of 37,000 who still believe in the proper terminology. A growing minority of 25,400, however, use the term "hair-brained." (Paradoxically, it is the latter group who are hare-brained.)

This has nothing to do with my previous post, as rabbits and hares are not the same animal, although both are Lagomorphs. (A hare harem would be another matter, though.....)

UPDATE: Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that Publicola has a long and thoughtful post about this latest Second Amendment threat, in which he suggests starting a resistance movement. (That's exactly how I felt in the Gay Guns days....) I think fighting this thing from within is extremely important, especially to show San Francisco that living under their tyranny exist many who oppose politically correct gay Stalinism -- and not just the usual stereotypical homo-haters. (But please don't get me wrong; I think it would be very helpful the latter would help the cause notwithstanding their distaste for San Francisco.)

Eugene Volokh (also via Glenn Reynolds) was quick to spot the national importance of this proposed ordinance and sound the alarm against dismissing it as just another local measure.

Wasn't it Franklin who said something about hanging together lest we hang separately?

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Anyone who think homosexuals are a mindless, monolithic force for political correctness should read Sean Kinsell's post about the 1.5 to 2 million gays who voted for Bush in direct defiance of their self styled "leaders." One of Sean's gems:

"Gay activists and journalists seem to be standing around and asking, 'Why the hell didn't you guys do what you were told?'"

AND ANOTHER IMPORTANT UPDATE: My blogfather, Alphecca, the Blogosphere's Original Gay Gun NutŠ, has weighed in on the assault on freedom:

It hasn't worked in Chicago, it hasn't worked in DC, it's a total failure in England and Australia. And showing what complete morons they are, the San Francisco tyrants think that somehow it will be different in their town? Lunacy is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

And given the liberal make-up of the city, the vote will probably pass.

But be forewarned, ye San Francisco Gay Stalinist tyrants and all other nebulous nutjobs of nitwittery! Jeff's "Weekly Report on Anti-Gun Bias" can now be heard on the radio -- in (gasp!) San Francisco!

Tuesdays at 2:20 PM (EST)
on the Cam Edwards'
"NRA News Live" Show
via the Web or Sirius Satellite Radio
on channel 141.