Except for the semantic giveaway indicating comfort with “brainwashing”, there’s nothing wrong with Holder’s 1995 speech about guns

Here’s the video in which Eric Holder ends by saying that we have to “brainwash” young people into new attitudes about guns:

I am no Eric Holder fan.  I think he’s very busy now trying to destroy both the Justice Department and the abstract notion of justice within the United States.  I would love to have caught him in a “gotcha” moment.  But the above video is not that moment.

Holder’s point is a good one, which is that our youth culture, especially our black youth culture, has long been inundated with images of guns, not as tools for food and safety, but as symbols of power.  Yes, guns do make one powerful.  That’s why women should look to guns for self-defense, because they do level the playing field.  But for many, many years, with ultra-liberal Hollywood accelerating the process in the last couple of decades, guns aren’t being sold to the youth of America as an integral part of the rights of free people, enabling them to feed themselves and stave off the attacks of the more powerful.  Instead, they’re about glamor and death, in a culture that has little value for human life.

Even Holder’s use of the word “brainwash,” which is not a high-use word in the conservative vocabulary, makes some sense in the context of his speech.  Hollywood is now and has been “brainwashing” America’s youth for decades, insofar as it has created an overwhelmingly pervasive and powerful paradigm about the glamor of guns, a paradigm that relies on emotional pressure to override all other considerations.  Reclaiming those damaged youthful brains is an effort.

So no, nothing Holder said is wrong.  Of course, what Holder’s done since that speech, especially in the form of Operation Fast and Furious is wrong, both morally and legally.  And you and I both know that Holder, given the chance would cheerfully do away with the Second Amendment without a moment of hesitation. To him, changing the gun culture means doing away with guns entirely, which is an impossible task because totalitarian governments and individual evil actors will always have guns.  To us, changing the gun culture means teaching people to revere their freedoms and to recognize that guns are an integral part of maintaining those freedoms — provided that our citizens understand that guns are tools, not deadly fashion accessories.