They see guns the way I see wine

I don’t drink.  I don’t like the stuff, and have never forced myself to learn to enjoy it.  However, I often find myself in a situation that requires me to buy wine, whether for a potluck or because it’s the perfect hostess gift.  Over the years, I’ve developed a surprisingly effective technique, since I’m often told after the fact, with real sincerity, that the wines I pick are quite nice.  Here’s what you do:

  1. Decide on your price and look only at wines in that price range.
  2. Decide on your color, red, white or rose.
  3. Pick a pretty label.
  4. When you find a label you think is attractive on a bottle in your price and color, you’re done.  You’ve found your wine and you can buy it with a clear conscience.

As you can see, I’ve removed wine buying entirely from the realm of actual wine quality, and placed it into the world of visual aesthetics.

I thought of that when I heard from the Confederate Yankee that the Hillary Clinton campaign, in attacking Obama on gun control issues, sent out a mailer with a very artistic photograph of a very bizarre gun:

Over the weekend, The Clinton campaign came under fire for a mailing that attacked Barack Obama’s horrific record on guns. The ad was inaccurate—it didn’t go nearly far enough in describing the number and kind of firearms Obama would like to see banned—but as Hillary’s record is every bit as suspect regarding the ubiquitous and yet poorly misunderstood semi-automatic action, I can understand why should wouldn’t want to undercut her own less-than-credible position.

Almost immediately after that story aired, however, Clinton came under fire for the choice of gun used in the add, a rare Mauser 66 with double-set triggers. Rifles with double-set triggers are rare in the United States, but are a feature more common in Europe. The problem was further compounded by the fact that the image was flipped to show the gun as a left-handed model, and the Mauser 66 was never released as a left-handed gun. The picture therefore portrays a gun that has never been made.

This being a political season, many are looking for the real meaning behind that peculiar image choice.  CY wonders, obliquely, whether there wasn’t some sabotage involved by someone inside the campaign.  You can see him thinking, “They can’t really be that stupid about guns, can they?”

Au contraire, my friend.  I’m here to tell you that, on the Leftie side of politics, they know about guns the way I know about wine:  They chose an image that looked good — and, since the campaign is having problems raising money, they also probably chose a free image.  In other words, they relied on price and aesthetics in choosing a gun photo, using an approach that exactly parallels the way in which I choose wine.  Sometimes, a cigar is just a smoke, and a badly chosen photo is just pig-ignorance.