{"id":1232,"date":"2024-01-16T03:36:57","date_gmt":"2024-01-16T03:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/?page_id=1232"},"modified":"2024-01-16T07:02:09","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T07:02:09","slug":"guns_detail_4","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/?page_id=1232","title":{"rendered":"GUNS_DETAIL_4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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GUNS<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
SEPTEMBER 19, 2023<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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A Brief History of Politicians Shooting, Flamethrowing, and Generally Using Deadly Weapons in Campaign Ads<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A Brief History of Politicians Shooting, Flamethrowing, and Generally Using Deadly Weapons in Campaign Ads<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • JACOB ROSENBERG<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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    • Associate Editor<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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      \"\"
      A still from a 2014 ad created for Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

      Over the weekend,<\/strong>\u00a0a partial lie spread online.\u00a0In Missouri, on a dark night,\u00a0<\/strong>two Republican state senators brandished flamethrowers, while encircled by iPhone-wielding spectators, and\u00a0burned\u00a0empty boxes representing the \u201cleftist\u201d agenda. As the\u00a0Riverfront Times\u00a0<\/em>noted, one of the men was state Sen. Bill Eigel, a Republican who is running for governor in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Their gag was misunderstood. Somehow the aesthetics\u2014a pyre of flames, chants of \u201cLet\u2019s Go Brandon,\u201d destroying \u201cwoke\u201d things\u2014led to the rumor that Eigel, and his fellow state legislator Sen. Nick Schroer, were actually burning books, just like the Nazi mobs who covered objectionable texts in paraffin and ignited them in public squares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      This is not true. Afterward, Eigel\u00a0allowed that he would burn\u00a0some<\/em>\u00a0books, and the state of Missouri has\u00a0restricted material\u00a0from school libraries, but that was not his mission that night. \u201cIn the video, I am taking a flame thrower to cardboard boxes representing what I am going to do to the leftist policies and RINO corruption of the\u00a0Jeff City\u00a0swamp,\u201d Eigel\u00a0told\u00a0The Kansas City Star<\/em>. \u201cBut let\u2019s be clear, you bring those woke pornographic books to Missouri schools to try to brainwash our kids, and I\u2019ll burn those too\u2014on the front lawn of the governor\u2019s mansion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Cool. A normal guy way of talking. Anyway, this was one of the weirder, less fun examples of an under-discussed recent tradition of campaign season: The use of a deadly weapon as a metaphor to explain how a legislator plans to attack the ideas of their colleagues if they win office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Talking about policy this way has become a handy clich\u00e9 of campaign ads. Usually, a politician will have a weapon, say, a gun, and then shoot a series of agenda items representing their opponent\u2019s positions. This serves as a shorthand for the argument that you should vote for them! (The approach is distinct from the famous\u00a0Daisy\u00a0ad\u00a0from President Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s\u2014and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee\u2019s\u00a0rip off\u00a0of it\u2014which shows the\u00a0consequences\u00a0<\/em>of the policies. In that case, the image of an innocent child plucking a daisy before an atomic bomb is detonated suggests \u201cthe stakes\u201d of the election.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      In 2012, my colleague Tim Murphy created a short list of politicians \u201cblowing things up\u201d that highlighted the enthusiastic use of firearms among lawmakers. What follows are more recent examples, with slightly expanded criteria that include other weapons. If you\u2019ve got some I missed, feel free to\u00a0email me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Joe Manchin, gun<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

      Take a brief trip down memory lane with me, for a classic of the genre, which generated a lot of headlines when it was released in 2010. In it, Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) takes \u201cdead aim\u201d at a few liberal policies and specifically shoots a \u201cCap and Trade Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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