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Thread: Catfishing, trolling, propaganda - and firearms SMEs

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    Catfishing, trolling, propaganda - and firearms SMEs

    This post is directed at firearms SMEs. It is relevant, to a lesser extent, to all firearms owners and enthusiasts. The period leading to the 2018 and 2020 elections will be a fraught time. I'm speaking about elaborate video misinformation campaigns, starring you.

    Last week, several SMEs were caught up in a gigantic clusterfuck of a scam. What began as an elaborate catfishing scheme turned out to be a well-funded propaganda video shoot. Here are three accounts of the same incident, with a link that follows up.

    February 20, 2018

    Last weekend, while doing what seemed to be a regular interview, I discovered that a movie is being made with the intent to discredit gun-rights leaders across the country.

    No, this is not a joke, it is real and we need to get the word out to other gun-rights organizations, gun-rights leaders, and prominent firearms trainers across the country and we need to do this FAST.

    Back in 2014, alleged Hollywood sexual predator Harvey Weinstein said he was going to make a movie “that would make the NRA wish they weren’t alive.” (All gun organizations are the NRA in his mind.) And he was dead serious. Michael Moore has been attempting to discredit gun owners and leaders for years by tricking people and using creative editing techniques to make them look foolish or idiotic.

    WhoÂ’s behind this effort isnÂ’t clear, but they are EXTREMELY WELL FUNDED PROFESSIONALS. For example, to reel me in and to try to make me feel beholden to them, they laid out the red carpet, by providing luxury accommodations, limousine service, and providing a generous monetary allowance to cover meals and other expenses for two days.

    They use psychological manipulation, as well as lies and tricks to put their victim into comedic situations that subject them to public shame, embarrassment, and ridicule. I believe the intent is to destroy reputations and even lives.

    I did some detective work in the days immediately following the “interview,” and I managed to find out they had targeted at least one nationally known firearms trainer and I know there are more. They appear to be setting up near gun shows. I also found out they covered their tracks carefully to avoid revealing their true identity.

    It started when VCDL received an email last week from a company called “First Freedom Television” to do an interview with an “Israeli security expert” on the “shared security interests of like-minded countries, such as the U.S. and Israel.” It went on, “Unlike the misguided position of American liberals, who aim to eradicate guns altogether, Israel has proven that universal gun training and widespread gun ownership actually leads to a safer society.”

    I do interviews all the time, and this one didnÂ’t seem to be all that much out of the ordinary.

    On Sunday, February 11, 2018, I did the interview in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. About 5 minutes into the interview, my radar turned on big time when the interviewer was making claims about Israeli schools training selected children to use firearms from age 17 down to age 4 (!) as a last ditch effort in stopping a terrorist attack on a school if the teachers and security staff had been killed. The children would have codes to unlock secured firearms in such a case.

    When I balked at 4-year-olds being able to do that, he showed me an alleged newscast video on his iPad. The text was in Hebrew, but with an English-speaking narration, talking about how a 4-year-old boy had indeed stopped a terrorist attack at his school. The newscast said that he killed two terrorists using his dadÂ’s gun, which he had brought to school in his backpack to show a friend, in violation of school rules. Israeli Premier Netanyahu was touting him as a hero in the video.

    While I’ve never been to Israel, I do know they have some serious terrorism concerns, especially at schools and other public gatherings. The way they handle some of their security can be very different from what we have in the U.S. But that news story just didn’t look right, and 4-year-olds can hold a gun and fire it with supervision, but not take on terrorists, and especially manage to shoot and kill two of them.

    Because of this and various other odd things I noticed during the interview, I was now convinced that something wasn’t right. This wasn’t real and probably some sort of a set up.

    I could only think of Hollywood's threat. At a minimum, it could be a comedy which would play only in Israel, but it could be a more damaging attempt to make a “mocumentary,” by someone like Michael Moore, or, even worse, a Sacha Baron Cohen-esq “Borat”-type of shock comedy meant to be devastatingly embarrassing and humiliating to the victim in the crosshairs.

    As the 15-minute interview terminated, the interviewer asked me if I, as an English-speaking firearms trainer, would help him make a “gun safety” training video for children of various ages. This had to be the “kicker,” I thought.

    For better or for worse, I decided that I would play along with the scheme so I could find out who was behind this and where this was going. I figured if I was right about this being a set up, I could blow the whistle and get a warning out to the gun-rights community across the country to protect as many people as possible and maybe derail this attack. If it turned out to be nothing, then no harm, no foul.

    We recorded for almost 3 hours using Airsoft guns as props. They even had a teleprompter!

    I was right – it was a set up - and it was much worse than I could have imagined. If you’ve seen the 70’s movie, “The Sting,” it was much like that. It was a well-orchestrated, well-choreographed, psychological manipulation, with a production cast of at least 10 people, to slowly lead a person down the primrose path.

    We went step-by-step with a ready, and seemingly logical, answer every time I balked at some crazy part of the training. They seemed to have thought of every thing that a person might question. All I can say is that these people were extremely good at deception and manipulation. And no matter how stupid the things the interviewer and I were doing (we were side-by-side the whole time), no one else cracked a smile or laughed once, and I was watching. The professional actors were keeping up the appearance that this was a serious project.

    The end goal was to get the victim to make a “training film” teaching 3 and 4-year-olds how to shoot guns hidden in toy animals at “bad” people, to sing little songs and make gun noises during the training to make it “fun for children,” and even teach little kids how to shoot a rocket-propelled-grenade or a squad automatic weapon at an approaching suicide bomber vehicle!

    It all sounds unbelievable. But everything was elaborately and expensively staged; every contingency planned for, with explanations that make unbelievable things seem plausible (fake documents and videos about how Israel handles security in their schools, for example). The interview moved along at a pace, designed not to give the “mark” time to reflect on where things are going. The craziness factor very gradually got more extreme, like cooking a frog by slowly heating up the water so he doesn’t realize what’s happening until it's too late. It’s a con game, a sting, plain and simple.

    I don’t know if they have other scenarios or they will use other company names to continue concealing their identity, but anyone doing an interview dealing with gun rights where they sense something odd should terminate that interview. Or, better, bring a recorder and tell the other party you are going to make your own recording of the interview. If they say “no,” then walk out. I am going to make that my own policy going forward to protect against any future fake interviews. BTW, they had me leave my cellphone in an office “because it might interfere with the recording devices,” but I think it was so I couldn’t take any photos of them or make any video or audio recordings on that phone.

    In the end we played each other and I confirmed what I feared this was all about. Sadly for me, IÂ’m sure IÂ’m going to be in whatever crazy film finally comes out, looking really stupid and, just as sadly, IÂ’ll probably be in good company. A few of us will no doubt get hammered, but if we can get the word out IMMEDIATELY, we might be able to save the reputations of many other good people.

    Finally, looking at the possibilities and what I saw while making the “training film,” I’m betting this is going to end up being a “Borat”-style film and it’s going to be vicious on the victims.

    Please share this alert far and wide.

    Philip Van Cleave
    President
    Virginia Citizens Defense League
    Philip Van Cleave of the VCDL Page - Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. has shared his experience with a production company that has been found out to be running a scam on The Firearms Community. I was also invited to participate in the production, but did not end up doing so. Here are the highlights of my experience:

    I was actually flown out to this taping that was going on in PA a couple of weeks ago.

    The production team figured out pretty quickly that I wasn't going to go along with the shenanigans and then proceeded to come up with every version of excuse for why they "went ready for me" or "there were delays" when I repeatedly tried to make contact with the supposed "Trainers" that were involved. At one point I actually got in a car and was heading over to the taping location in Harrisburg from the Great American Outdoors Show and they had the driver turn around and take me back to the hotel. The production staffer was in a panic on the phone, which she obviously didn't know was on speaker. She insisted that I be taken to my hotel and that the car return for someone else that why were ready for. One of the production staff members showed up there to cover my associated expenses and have me sign a receipt (I never signed a release of agreement to be part of the production). Throughout this time I had been in contact with two different women: Ashley Winthrop and Alexis Rothe. I was also forwarded an email from a "Julia" who arranged my flight.

    I later heard from a gun rights activist, Jan, who was also invited to participate. I had met her the night before, as we both flew in on the same flight and had given her my contact information. They actually put her in front of the camera that day and manipulated her into playing along with the some extraordinarily ridiculous things like a gun disguised as a stuffed animal so that young kids could keep at the ready in the classroom with them and killers wouldn't immediately target the kids with the guns. One of the guns was actually named "Uzi-Corn".... you get the idea. Her story was very similar to Philips that is related above in the story at Ammoland Shooting Sports News. She was mortified at having been duped into participating and was very concerned about how she was going to look if the footage were ever released. She was concerned about the production embarrassing gun owners.

    I'll admit that when I first heard her story, I didn't believe that it was actually a set-up. It was easier to believe that there were just some really well intentioned but horribly misguided people who were being strung along by an LA Production company looking to make a few bucks. My assumption at that point was that they didn't let me in to keep their production moving forward without disruption... but, I didn't clearly see the reason behind their fear of that disruption.
    I did counsel Jan in regard to the next steps she should take to prevent her participation from being part of any video that might eventually be released and I am still in contact with her as she is working with lawyers to try to protect her reputation.

    While at the GAO show, I bumped into a friend who is sponsored shooter and learned that she was also invited to participate. I learned the next day that they ended up not sending a car at the agreed upon time and she did not participate either.

    My last communication with the "Alexis" from the Production Company was on March 12th:

    "So, I've heard a few others involved in your production. It sounds like you've got a real disaster on your hands... one full of reckless negligence in regard to kids and firearms. I'm inclined to put the word out to everyone in the industry. Possibly even coming by today to speak with the guys behind this to try to keep them from embarrassing themselves and the firearms community.... or maybe just to get pictures of the stuffed animals."

    I actually posted a warning to the CFS Instructor Team in our discussion group on March 13th that included:

    “Beware of this outfit and media project. I don’t know if it is a well funded scam to embarrass gun people or a well funded shit show.... but, it should be avoided.”

    Over the past few days, the truth behind the craziness has been revealed.

    I have been (and remain) an advocate for "always saying yes" to media invitations so that we can present our views as responsible gun owners and Second Amendment Advocates. That said, we must not be so anxious to participate in front of the camera that we go along with whatever is being said... even if it means risking offending someone or insulting them by requesting to record the event ourselves or vet the claims of the other people involved.

    I am standing by to assist anyone who might be impugned by this well funded scam.

    -Rob Pincus
    Hello. I can vouch 100% for Philip. Almost the same scenario happened to me. I received the same letters that Philip and Rob Pincus received. I spoke with Ashley and Julia and Alexis beforehand and asked them many questions to make sure they were legitimate. They said all the right things to make me feel like I was going to to be contributing the good of society, specifically, “discussing how to discuss communities safe in the 21st Century.” They paid for my airfare and put me up in the Hilton, downtown Harrisburg. They also offered a driver to pick me up from my home to take me to the airport, pay for meals and to be compensated for my time. I’ve been volunteering my time and paying my own expenses for more than 20 years fighting to protect the 2nd Amendment, so this was unexpected.

    They also asked me if I could be prepared to talk about gun safety. I was really excited to do this, because I have handed out thousands of the NRA’s “Eddie Eagle” program and worked with legislators to get gun safety education mandated in Utah schools. I’ve also taught many Eddie Eagle gun safety courses. I also found copies of the comic book, “Gun Control Kills Kids,” by Aaron Zelman with Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, to take to them. I believed this would have extra meaning to them…because I would be meeting with members of Israeli security experts.

    I received a phone message from Alexis telling me not to bring firearms on set because they would be using replicas. I had not agreed to be part of any firearms demonstrations. I am very careful how IÂ’m photographed with guns because I know the mediaÂ’s tendency to put gun owners in positions to make them look like extremists.

    When I arrived at TV production headquarters, they informed me that my driver was making more in one day than they made all week. (More ways to make me feel obligated and in debt to them.) They rushed me through, having me sign a contract without giving me time to read it. There were two buff guys performing disarming techniques on each other. They asked me if I wanted to learn how to disarm an attacker. I said sure. I knew they were letting me put them in chokeholds and grab the gun away from them. ItÂs possible they will use this section to show why guns are not an effective defensive tool because it's easy to take them away from people. Eran talked about how they hated Obama and loved Trump. Loved conservatives, hated liberals…they talked the talk. I’ve since spoken with law enforcement and they toldme that everything they did was sophisticated mind control techniques. I’m going to cut and paste what I posted on Facebook for the rest of my experience. But first, I want to thank Philip and Rob. My stress level has been over the top. But now I have two witnesses that will back me up. I’m so glad that we have connected…truly a divine coincidence. Before, I felt like I was alone in my testimony against them. I’m willing to take this to the mat to expose these Satanic pigs. I say that because Satan is a liar and the father of all lies. Everything they told us was a lie. Satan is also an enemy to freedom. If we lose our gun rights, we lose our freedom. https://www.gotquestions.org/father-of-lies.html Here’s my FB post:

    How do you stop school shootings? With pistol-packing preschoolers and five-year-old “Kindie-Guardians” shooting .50 caliber machine guns. That’s what Freedom First Television claimed that this is what Benjamin Netanyahu wanted in Israel. So they asked leaders of gun rights groups in America to help them for a TV show in Israel.

    I agreed to the interview because they invited me to talk about how to keep communities safe in the 21st Century. Had I known they were professional con artists with a completely different agenda, I would NEVER have agreed to do this interview. The whole letter was a carefully-planned trick from some gun-hating group to trick honest, law-abiding gunowers with lies and take advantage of their honesty. I did not agree to teach toddlers to kill terrorists.

    But they will edit the recordings to make me and anyone who owns guns to look like complete wackos. The following article is what happened to me on the same day! I received the same letter from FFTV. Almost exact same scenario. Totally manipulated and forced under duress, despite my constant objections, into teaching toddlers how to kill terrorists. How? By training gun-totin’ toddlers to shoot guns disguised as “Puppy Pistol,” “Bunny gun,” Uzicorn (uzi gun inside a cute furry stuffed unicorn), and “Dino Gun, a .50 caliber full-auto. And…wait for it…RPGs…to “send terrorists to the moon.” All the while singing, “If you’re happy and you know it shoot your gun, bang, bang.” Because the interviewer was on a mission because he claimed his toddler son was killed by a terrorist attack in a school in Israel.

    As presposterous as this sounds. It happened. And I’m fighting back. I asked for them to cancel my contracts. That I would return airfare and hotel fees. That this is completely irresponsible to teach kids that guns are as harmless as stuffed animals. That they did not have my permission to use my image associated with their “gun safety” program. Other people are victims. I’m asking you to share this message so that no one else is duped. And so that nobody ever thinks it’s OK to make bullets look as harmless as coloring crayons and deadly ammunition to look as harmless as carrot food for the cute bunny gun.That you just press on the tummies of these deadly weapons and they spit out their food to make the bad guys take a nap. Guns are NOT soft furry stuffed animals that can be hugged and played with. SHAME ON THEM!!
    You can find additional information regarding this specific campaign here.

    Propaganda is not new. However, selectively edited video is more powerful than ever, and its importance will continue to grow in the highly-connected, internet addled future. It is not possible to overstate the seriousness of selectively-edited or candid video. From high-budget propaganda scams to hidden camera to "man on the street" interviews, YouTube and the news cycle present a real danger for the reputations and livelihoods SMEs, enthusiasts, and the Second Amendment generally. If you are a trained media professional or someone who has years of experience speaking with the media, you are not as prepared as you think you are. Just ask VCDL's Phil van Cleave, who got caught up in the above scam. He's a pro. People who do things a thousand times get careless. You need to train against carelessness.

    What mindset and tactics can you prepare with? First, make some divisions and definitions. This helps sort out how to think about things. Then we will discuss the basics.

    Two definitions from Wikipedia:

    Catfishing is a type of deceptive activity where a person creates a sock puppet social networking presence, or fake identity on a social network account, for nefarious purposes.
    a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion, often for the troll's amusement.
    For our purposes, an interview is:
    • A conversation or shared time between parties, during which the words and actions are preserved and entered into the public record


    There are two kinds of interview production:
    • A live interview takes place in front of (or broadcast in real-time to) a body of independent viewers. These are sometimes recorded and later edited for time. You are unlikely to be deceptively edited during a live interview because there are "witnesses". However, live interviews with talented, hostile interviewers can make you look like an idiot. Jon Stewart made his money roasting people in front of a live studio audience. He did it to Tucker Carlson and got Crossfire canceled. Now Tucker does the same thing.

    • A prerecorded interview is taped, dissected, and then substantially rebuilt inside a digital mixing suite. They can do just about anything with your voice and likeness.


    There are three kinds of interview stance:
    • A friendly interview will make you look smarter and kinder than you actually are and will portray your opinions in a favorable light.

    • A neutral interview will make your look as smart and kind as the biases of your interviewer. A man trying to be fair can only be as fair as the limits of his own personal knowledge and unconscious desires allows him. If you are discussing guns with someone who has never shot one before, expect a neutral interview to make your overall interview performance appear worse than you think you did.

    • A hostile interview will try to make you look dumber and meaner than you are. A hostile interview can be fair. In fact, most are fair and aimed at real journalism and finding real truth. Politicians and media professionals take hostile interviews all the time. Often, they come out looking great. They have training that goes beyond what we're going to discuss here. But to be brief, they take the salesman alphabet Always Be Closing and apply it to the interview. They stay on message, preparing that message beforehand and navigate through questions to return to that message. This is something that people hate about "how politicians talk": it feels like they never answer a question directly. In reality, they answer the questions they want to answer, and they constantly work to re-frame questions into ones they have practiced answering. Not everyone is as good at this as others. Marco Rubio showed us how conventional media training can backfire when confronted by similarly trained and better experienced interlocutors.


    There are two kinds of interview purpose:
    • Journalism here includes long and short format, from documentary through soundbite, and from editorial opinion through government reporting. JFK said it best: "Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment-- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion." Journalism in its purest form is impartial, but editorial journalism is still real journalism.

    • Propaganda is not always the complete subversion of journalism. Mark Twain joked, "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." Many people might say that good journalism necessarily "plays on people's emotions". The essence of propaganda, though, is more than exploitative human interest stories and clickbait headlines. Propaganda advances an agenda. In the modern world, this is accomplished through expensive and sophisticated campaigns that play with fact and context to establish narrative and policy. The line between propaganda and editorial journalism is not clear.


    To put it another way, journalism reports the news; propaganda creates the news.

    After you think about these divisions, consider how the above scam victims weren't entirely aware whether the interview was hostile or not, whether it was journalism or propaganda. This has several media precursors. The most famous is Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. One example is this interview with Peter Schiff. This 4-minute clip was pared down from a 4-hour interview and selectively edited to make him look like a moron. Here's Schiff's side of the story.

    Sometimes, you don't even know you're being interviewed. A common propagandist tactic is to use hidden cameras. Work done by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles targeted ACORN with hidden cameras and leading questions. Those videos led to the death of that organization. Work done by Lila Rose and The Center For Medical Progress against Planned Parenthood led to multiple lengthy state and federal investigations. James O'Keefe's later Project Veritas targeted many organizations, including teacher's unions and Silicon Valley corporations and dominated any weekly news cycle.

    (This is not the place to argue about the exact similarity in art and circumstances, what is and is not "propaganda". The point is that "GUNS" and "GUN GUYS" are now on the menu.)

    After making some divisions and considering other examples, what can we learn from these examples? Here's a good list from Megan McArdle specifically regarding The Daily Show. If you are not a trained media professional, these guidelines are applicable to any hostile interview:

    It's unacceptable to lie to interview subjects -- especially members of the public, who probably do not have PR flacks and image consultants to assist them.

    This appears to be something of a standard practice for "The Daily Show" when interviewing its ideological opponents. It is not good journalistic practice, which is why so many millennials should take Jon Stewart at his word and not treat the show as news. However, I'm sure millennials will continue to do so, and the show's producers will continue to supply them with dubious antics, so here's a guide for people who do not share the show's politics but are considering going on it anyway:

    • Don't.

    • If you must, bring two tape recorders, a video camera and a witness. Announce at the beginning that you are going to record this and reserve the right to release the entire recording to the public. When they tell you that they will not do the interview under those conditions, prepare to leave. There is no ethical reason that a reporter requires the ability to ask you questions without having those questions recorded. The reason they don't want unedited audio is that you might release it and be revealed as a normal decent person, rather than a horrible fool.

    • They may attempt to get you to stay by explaining that recording will interfere with their equipment. This is the point where you whip the video camera out of your bag and helpfully offer to videotape the interview instead. Do not, under any circumstances, allow yourself to be alone in a room with the producers and no recording device.

    • Seriously, don't go on "The Daily Show." They control the format, the questions and the editing process. There is no way you can win. Your purpose is to look like an idiot on the show, and they have all the tools they need to make sure you fulfill that purpose. There is a reason that you have never seen a video clip of someone who "beat" Jon Stewart -- or Bill O'Reilly, or any other host of a show that pits professional interviewers against ordinary subjects. It's the same reason you haven't seen clips of ordinary folks beating Evander Holyfield: They are really good at this, and what they are good at is making you look like a stubborn moron who couldn't find his backside with both hands in the dark.

    • If you must go on "The Daily Show" and, despite all good advice, you are sitting down for an interview without your own witness and recorders running, understand that they will ask you questions that have no good answer. The correct answer to such questions is to tilt your head to one side and say "Sorry?" If they ask the question again, just ask "Didn't you already ask that?" Do not provide any other answer to a badly framed question along the lines of "When did you stop beating your wife?"

    • Producers will ask you the same question over and over in the hopes of getting a funny response. Same thing: "Didn't you already ask that?"

    • I must reiterate that you should not go on the Daily Show. If you do, you will end up wishing that you had a third leg so that you could run around the block, kicking yourself.

    • Do not try to be funny or charming. Funny and charming usually reads "creepy and arrogant" on television, especially after the editors are done with it.

    • For heaven's sake, why are you going on "The Daily Show"? Are you that desperate to get on television? It's really not that exciting, I promise. The only reason for you to go on television is for your family to see you being on television, except that in this case, what your family is going to see is you being profoundly embarrassed on television. There is no way that this ends well. Stay home and watch "The Daily Show" instead; it's really funny as long as you're not the target of the joke.
    I really like this list, but it's aimed toward very specific circumstances. Our dumb dystopian future looks more and more like a shitty episode of "Black Mirror" where, not only do we not know the true motivations of those recording us, we don't even know that we're being recorded in the first place. We need a generalized set of mindset, strategy, and tactics, the most important of which is mindset. Just like you practice mindset or mental preparedness for a self-defense situation, you need to practice mental preparedness for the event that a friendly or neutral interview is covertly hostile (propaganda), a camera is suddenly shoved in your face (ambush journalism or man on the street interview), or an unfamiliar person is asking you non-typical questions (hidden camera). Any of those videos can be selectively edited.

    The following is subject to amendment. It's probably full of typos and incomplete. It's basic and general. Right now, it is aimed at firearms SMEs. It might be missing something fundamental, and it could use some more work dealing specifically with catfishing and trolling. Some SMEs have significant media experience. I hope they will add their suggestions.

    Mindset:

    The general self-defense mindset that trainers try to instill in students is the same that trainers and enthusiasts need for themselves. Be aware of your surroundings. Just as there are people who will kill you for the contents of your wallet, be aware that there are people who will destroy your life and your livelihood in order to further a political agenda. Maybe it's a camera shoved into your face, or you were careless and realize you're now being asked leading questions, or a 'student' is speaking or acting provocatively and you suspect your class is being covertly recorded, or it turns out your guest spot on an Israeli tv show is an elaborately constructed ruse meant to smear all firearms SMEs and ruin your life. These people are real. The money, notoriety, and political connections given to those who do this well are a huge incentive to try.

    These are rules and mantras that I think are helpful.

    • Rule 0: There is no distinction between your "media" persona and your "teaching" persona. Everything you say in a class, you presume it will be heard by the entire world, and you are ready to stand by it. Conversely, everything you say and do during an interview, you would be prepared say and advise the same to your most critical students and SME peers. You are confident in your area of expertise, you freely admit the limits of your expertise, and you are immovable to any and every suggestion otherwise.


    For example, if you are a law enforcement officer and firearms trainer, you do not give use-of-force advice to a student who lives in a different state under laws you're not familiar with. Even if he wheedles and whines, you tell him that he needs to consult a lawyer or trained instructor from his own state. What good would your advice do him? None! It can only cause confusion on his part and professional trouble down the line for you. You are both humble and confident when you say, "I don't know."

    Likewise, if an Israeli documentary film-maker, weeping after the recent death of his own child, shows you very convincing evidence that young children can, by anything other than accident, use firearms in self-defense, you comment that the idea is reckless and intolerable. If he and his entire crew pressure you about the needs and abilities of small children in Israel, you respond that you are an expert in the practices and norms of involving small arms in 21st century America, not Israel, and that you cannot comment further than you have. You can also bring the question back to your SME area and say that you presume that children are the same everywhere, and repeat your criticism that the suggestion is reckless and intolerable.

    You can only hurt yourself and others if you speak or act outside your area of expertise. Repeated: you can only hurt yourself and others is you use the guise of authority to endorse things you are not sure about. You are a teacher. People rely on you for your expertise. You need to be honest with them and yourself at all times. You help everyone by being a truth-teller. The greatest human beings in history are remembered principally as radical truth-tellers. Don't flatter yourself with anger or compassion - "feelings can lie." Tell the homely, resilient truth.

    • Rule 1: All questions are covertly hostile interviews.

    • Rule 2: Never let your mouth say anything your ass can't stand behind.

    • Rule 3: Keep your lips closed until you understand the question and understand how you will respond to it.

    • Rule 4: Be sure of your answer and what is beyond it, i.e., what further questions your answer raises, and how you might use this answer to get on message.


    • Mantra 0: I know who I am. I am an expert in [area]. I will not be interviewed [speak on the record] in other areas.

    • Mantra 1: This question is an interview.

    • Mantra 2: This interview is hostile.

    • Mantra 3: This is a covertly hostile interview.

    • Mantra 4: Everything I say can and will be used against me in the court of public opinion.


    The last part of mindset are two mental switches you need to be comfortable flipping.

    First mental switch: "This is an interview"

    You flip this switch when someone asks you a question inside your area of expertise, or to speak using your authority as an expert. When you flip this switch, you are no longer talking to your close friends and family. You are now speaking to a student, journalist, or propagandist. It will be tempting to speak to everyone like they're actually your best friend. Students look up to you; journalists flatter you; propagandists will lie to you. Flip the switch - your conversation is no longer guided by feeling or emotion. You are a radical truth-teller.

    Second mental switch: "I am not an expert in the line of questioning"

    Sometimes the first question, but usually somewhere along the line, you will need to flip this switch. The borders of subject matter expertise are gradients, not lines. People speak inside those gradients all the time. That is sometimes where the best conversations are - in a place where no one is a subject matter expert. The danger comes when the conversation, line of questioning, or demonstration travels into an area that is beyond the gradient.

    "Beyond reasonable doubt" and "preponderance of evidence" are great standards for your area of expertise. You might find yourself feeling troubled or unsure. Consider: am I endorsing or condemning something I'm not really sure about? Am I being led to this endorsement or condemnation? Flip the switch. You don't know. You will not involve yourself with or vouch for any answer or activity that you cannot indemnify out of the storehouse of your expertise.

    Strategy:

    • Avoidance: Firearms SMEs constantly tell their students that avoidance is the number one strategy for personal safety. This is also excellent media advice. McArdle is spot on here. If you know that your words will be deceptively edited, don't go. You can't beat the editor.

    • Preparation: Regardless of our careful avoidance, the fact is that, if your are a firearms SME and you make your livelihood from speaking and instructing on the subject of guns, gun safety, or gun policy, there is a chance that you can be metaphorically mugged. Be prepared to discuss

    • Stay on message: this is the principal strategy for successfully navigating all openly hostile interviews. This strategy is executed with advanced media training. Do not take openly hostile interviews unless you have already engaged in significant preparation, hopefully with a coach.

    • Remember who you are: this is the principal strategy for successfully defusing all covertly hostile interviews, catfishing, trolling, etc.


    Tactics:

    At home:
    • If you are an SME, you should be familiar with the MAJOR and RECENT publications in your field, both FOR and AGAINST premises that you advocate.

    • Make notes and practice recalling the names and authors of those publications.

    • Practice saying the words, "I can't comment on that." "I will have look into it myself." "I'll have to get back to you later on that." "Thank you for bringing it to my attention."

    • If you are presented with information that you are not familiar with, say "I can't comment on that." These are, with no doubt, the most important words you practice.

    • Advanced media training involves practicing for specific interviews and specific events with teams of researchers and coaches; they drill you for hours on different questions, how to associate certain questions with certain answers, how to reframe specific questions, and how to navigate from specific questions to your message. Because so much of advanced training is situation and subject specific, it is not suited for a general post on defensive interview skills.


    Before the interview:
    • "You can't have your cell phone because it will interfere with our recording equipment" is the oldest trick in the book. If you hear it, the interview is guaranteed to be covertly hostile. Don't fall for it. Get up and leave.

    • Ask to record the interview yourself.

    • Ask that your answers to be made available to the public IN FULL.

    • Agree to the interview only on the condition that the interviewer first comes to a shooting range with you. This is not appropriate for everyone and every case, but it a great way to introduce yourself and your area of expertise to journalists, many of whom have zero practical experience with firearms. NB: reputable institutions of journalism do not allow their staff to accept gifts of any kind from their subjects. A journalist might use your gun, but will expect to pay for the costs of the trip, same way he wouldn't let you pay for his lunch.


    During the interview:
    • Rules, Mantras, Constant vigilance with your first and second mental switches.

    • End the interview when you are finished. If people of good will want you to do or say something that is simply not true, you are finished. If you suspect the interview is covertly hostile or intended for propaganda, you are finished. Say thank you, smile, carefully remove your remote mic and gently place it somewhere, stand up, and leave. You will be recorded until you leave the studio. Remain silent or ask if they validate parking.


    After the interview:
    • Follow up with the interviewer and ask when the story will appear online, in print, etc. Seek out the finished product actively.

    • Review the media and decide if it portrayed you fairly, considering why or why not. Either way, write a few sentences and post the link to your social media profiles or email list. If was a fair portrayal, it never hurts to thank the interviewer. If it was a real hatchet job, it never hurts to tell his editor.

    • If you suspect you're the victim of a propaganda hoax, or you had a camera stuck in your face, or you think you're about to get some bad press very soon, GET AHEAD OF IT. Write about your experience and post it to your social media accounts and email lists.


    Final words:

    People can be targeted en masse, and they can be targeted individually. Watch your back, be a steward of the online firearms community, be a friend to other firearms internet commenters, and don't be too angry at people who fall for hoaxes or become the unwitting subjects of propaganda. Divided we fall.

  2. #2
    Site Supporter
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    Thank you for posting this. I forwarded a link to appropriate people.

  3. #3
    Site Supporter
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    All true. I went though this after the Virginia Tech shooting. I fought for a week with CNN in person to get even close to a fair shake.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  4. #4
    Modding this sack of shit BehindBlueI's's Avatar
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    If you aren't trained to handle the media, don't talk to the media. Period.
    Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.

  5. #5
    Looks like Van Cleave got the full "Borat" treatment. https://pagesix.com/2018/02/15/sacha...hen-and-slade/

  6. #6
    Borat got tossed out of my gun range http://targetmasters.com/. I wasn't there when it happened. This was a few years ago when he wasn't as famous and they had no idea who he was. They did not grant him permission to film and when he asked them what would be a good gun to shoot a certain ethnic group/they told him to get the hell out.

  7. #7
    https://www.npr.org/sections/monkeys...who-is-america

    “The more effective incarnation of this routine happens when he persuades powerful people that whatever persona he's adopted is an ally of theirs, and then he pulls them along, gently, gently, while they agree with, say, and do more and more outrageous things.

    That's what he does in the last and longest segment — the one you'll be hearing about — in which he poses as an Israeli "terrorism expert" named Col. Erran Morad who's pitching a program called "Kinderguardians." The Kinderguardians program, he says to those whose support he's seeking, trains children as young as three or four to carry guns in school to protect against school shootings.

    In his tough-guy drag that features a walk so unlikely you'd only see it in a Monty Python sketch, Cohen meets up with gun enthusiasts Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, and Larry Pratt, the Executive Director Emeritus of Gun Owners of America. Both swallow the bait and then suck up a couple more feet of line. Pratt eventually laughs heartily at Cohen's stories of marital rape, an innocent Muslim shot while praying, and plenty more. Van Cleave, meanwhile, participates in a children's instructional video showcasing guns that are disguised as stuffed animals. He even sings a little song.”

  8. #8
    banana republican blues's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
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    Blue Ridge Mtns
    WTF!??! Let me off this bus.
    There's nothing civil about this war.

    Read: Harrison Bergeron

  9. #9
    Well, Van Cleave put his own spin on how it went down, it seems to me. Claims he went through the instructional part of filming to see if the production was legit or not, but no one made him say "put the bad man on a very long time out" and all the other ridiculous things he said and did knowing it was being filmed. He's a fool to have not seen he was being set up.


    Edit - Pincus is correct in the post above. Those old geezers were so thrilled to be on camera that they read everything put in front of them.
    Last edited by BigD; 07-16-2018 at 05:19 PM.

  10. #10
    Site Supporter ST911's Avatar
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    Midwest, USA
    Ho. Lee. Cow. That's some serious lack of SA and media discipline.
    الدهون القاع الفتيات لك جعل العالم هزاز جولة الذهاب

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