Why Your Trigger Happiness isn't Worth Our Harm

I'm troubled when a few Americans put their personal happiness on a pedestal above all others'.

That's what many gun owners are doing.

They stand their ground on the Second Amendment. But private gun ownership is a moral question, not a Constitutional one.

A majority of Americans can change the Constitution (go see the movie Lincoln, if you have any doubt). 

No one can change what's moral.

It's moral to respect another person's life. No Constitutional right invalidates that fact.

Constitutional rights may be curtailed to protect others from harms that can arise from the exercise of those rights.

I have, for example, a Constitutional right to worship freely. But it doesn't permit me to sacrifice humans (although human sacrifice might be central to my religion).

Right now, the burden is on gun owners to prove why unfettered gun ownership isn't causing terrible harm to others.

They can't.

That's because guns cause harm—by design—and are in too many private hands.

Americans have a moral reason to curtail private gun ownership, just as we curtail the ownership of dynamite, hand grenades and nuclear bombs.

Sorry gun owners: your trigger happiness isn't worth our harm.

With Web Videos, Short Trumps Long

Short Web videos are more effective than long ones, according to a new study by AOL.

The study found:

• For brand recall, short beat long by 25 percent
• For creating purchase intent, short beat long by 42 percent

Although viewers understand that ads are the cost of free Web content, they're adopting the same ad-avoidance habits TV watchers have (changing channels, multitasking, leaving the room, etc.).

To counteract those habits, the study says, you should produce short Web videos that include coupons, contests and links.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

Kearny's Castle is a Civil War novel.

I've been working on it for several years.

I couldn't send you a fruitcake, so here's Chapter One as a gift.

Download it now.

And have a very Merry Christmas!

Note: The work is Copyright 2012 by Robert F. James

B2B Execs Socially Unaware

B2B executives don’t get social media, according to marketer Lenna Garibia, writing for MarketingProfs.

Citing new research by Harris Interactive, she notes:

• 43% say they rarely or never consider the social media reputation of their firms when making key decisions
• 67% say they could not respond to a hostile social-media post within a day, and
• 13% say they wouldn’t bother

There’s a weird geographic difference among the execs.

Those who live in the northeast are much more likely to care about the social media reputation of their firms than those who live in the west.

The Under Toad

I met Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson at a conference once.

It was 1972. The country was deep in the throes of a Presidential election.

Four months earlier, segregationist and gun-loving Alabama Governor George Wallace had lost his bid for the Presidency thanks to a would-be assassin.

I asked Dr. Thompson whether he thought Wallace might change his stance on gun control after being shot five times in the chest and stomach.

"I don't know," Thompson snarled. "But I do know this. Everyone should carry a gun. We all should carry guns. The streets would be a lot safer. America would be a better place."

Thirty-three years later, depressed and deathly ill, Hunter Thompson blew off the top of his head with a shotgun.

I don't understand the pleasure of gun ownership. I don't understand the thrill of hunting animals. But a lot of people I know and admire enjoy both those things.

As a parent, however, I understand how fear and loathing due to the loss of a child could exceed any imaginable sorrow.

In his novel The World According to Garp, John Irving famously described the brutal workings of the "Under Toad," code-words for "the forces that disrupt human life and sometimes destroy it." The life of a child, in particular.

The Under Toad visited Newtown, Connecticut, last week.

Several parents will never feel sorrow-less again.