Cut-And-Paste Campaign?

[stickmaker]

Got a question for folks. There has been a spate of nearly identical letters sent to magazines and newspapers all over the US. The writer claims something like "I've been a hunter for 60 years" and goes on to say that he can't seen any reason for having a "machine gun/assault rifle/Saturday night special/large capacity magazine." The letters are well written and the author knows enough about guns to avoid major mistakes, but sometimes uses anti-gun terminology instead of actual firearms terminology.

There's a lot of speculation among gun owners that this is part of a campaign by anti-gunners, since no-one in the pro-firearms community seems to actually know the writers. I just wondered if any of you have seen such a letter and perhaps know anything about its true status.

Comments

[cafiorello.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen this particular one, but the term for this general tactic is "astroturf." (As in, fake grassroots.) You might try searching for "astroturf guns" and see what turns up....

Cathy

[solarbird]

Got a pointer to the letter? There must be one online.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

No, sorry. It was in an issue of _Gun Digest_ a couple of months back. The current issue has rebuttals, and a note about the similar letters appearing in other publications, along with speculation it's part of some sort of anti-gun campaign.