I do not want to debate the Second Amendment or gun control or gun policy or anything else of the kind here. Reasonable people can disagree about these issues; unreasonable people can disagree about them too. We can all agree, though, on two things:
(1) Lots of people who support gun rights -- and who want to flaunt them -- also support health care reform.
(2) Political jujitsu is sweet.
This being so, I want to suggest that people who are already Second Amendment advocates -- my own position is nuanced and I do not intend here to foster conversion to that cause -- start bringing a new sign to health care town halls and rallies:
Guns don't kill people,
Private health insurers kill people.
Someone here will, as usual, word this better; I'll be leaving soon so just use their wording instead.
Again, if you disagree with "Guns don't kill people," this is not your sign! But it can be someone else's.
I tend to rely on the pro-gun and classically educated thereisnospoon and hekebolos to explain exactly what rhetorical device something is, but the fun here is that the beginning of a classic "pro-gun" phrase -- "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" -- and veers it sharply and unexpectedly into a message about murder-by-spreadsheet. That's putting the discussion where we want it to be. You'll have to come armed -- so to speak -- with information about murder-by-spreadsheet, but that's easily had around here.
The other advantage is that now the people who show up with guns hoping (I believe) to intimidate people into not attending these rallies and town halls -- as discussed in my "toy handcuffs" diary from last night -- become props for our side.
Think about it: you have one guy brandishing a gun. You have a person next to him with a sign saying, in effect, "Gun owners for health care reform." What are they going to do? I think that things will immediately become a lot less fun for them.
I'm going to Rep. "Dirty" Gary Miller's August 25th town hall at 7:00 p.m. at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda. (I have five extra tickets, by the way, so let me know if you're interested.) I have a different sign that I want to carry, as "gun rights" isn't my issue. But if is your issue -- and you're going there or elsewhere -- I hope that you'll consider bringing this sign.