All of those things are evidence that the dam is cracking and sanity may finally be about to break out.
The kids have to go home sometime …
As a Democrat - well, not a registered Democrat but a Democratic-voting independent who plans on voting Democratic - I worry that these two things could backfire very very badly. Especially the Facebook issue.
Everything else you listed is stuff that most people don’t really think about day-to-day, and anything relating to those businesses and financial institutions is removed from the reality of most peoples’ lives. But Facebook and Youtube aren’t.
Facebook and Youtube ARE a lot of peoples’ lives. Facebook and Youtube are how American voters, especially the ones under 50, interface with the reality of their lives. Anything involving the restriction of social media is going to be inherently contentious. Yes, they’re private companies. Of course. The free market, yeah, yeah, you’d think conservatives would understand. But it isn’t that simple. The lines between the free market and the free exchange of ideas are continually blurred in political debate. It’s the optics that matter.
It doesn’t really seem like Facebook has gone that far with this idea of limiting gun-related posts, since I still see them. But if they go too far with it, it is really, really going to piss a lot of people off. If enough people get their hackles up over it, the upcoming elections, including the Presidential election, are going to become a referendum on gun control. I really, really, really don’t want that. That way lies disaster.
Delaware is a solidly blue state with a paltry 5.2% gun ownership, the lowest in the country. I don’t know how realistic it’s passage will be, but I imagine its far more realistic than in most states. Even California is at 19.8%.
I think the kids were callously manipulated by those willing to take advantage of their youthful energy and naivety to further a repugnant agenda. Glad to see their “movement” starting to fizzle out, much like all that “Occupy” nonsense a few years ago.
Yeah, you go with that.
I don’t think the person who was shooting their classmates was really trying to start a movement.
To the point of organization, have any of you actually been in high school? You remember the student council and other busybodies that were always trying to get your to come to some rally or another? These are the people that did the organization. They were already there, frothing about, trying to get students to take notice and attend their events.
Well, something happened that made students take notice, and rather than walk by and ignore that person passing out leaflets, they stopped and engaged with them, as it became something that had an impact on their lives.
It’s pretty amazing how the Parkland students are responsible for Hillary Clinton not getting elected. Their effects stretch both forward and backward in time!
They started a process that will go on for a while. Usually in America when there is mass murder, if the perpetrator is white we just say, “well, waddya gonna do?” This time was different. There will certainly be another mass murder very soon and it’s clear that it won’t be business as usual, thoughts and prayers won’t be enough to make it go away and people will stay mobilized on the issue, including at the ballot box.
So one state (Delaware) is proposing a block on the sale, transfer, and import on automatic and semi-automatic firearms, but no other types of guns. And if you own one of these weapons, you can still keep it. IMO, that’s not quite up to your original assertion of ‘states are still making hard pushes for gun bans.’
This.
Maybe they will. But the pro-gun people will also be mobilized at the ballot box.
We’ll just have to see how this plays out. I have developed an extreme cynicism about politics that started even before Trump’s victory (which I was almost alone among my peers in predicting), just from observing the past few years and from listening to the great Julie Mason on The Press Pool on Sirius XM.
It probably began around the middle of Obama’s administration and after witnessing Occupy peter out.
My prediction is that any political momentum generated by Parkland will fizzle out at best, or backfire badly at worst.
Well yeah, any nation that elects Trump is obviously in decline. I think the best we can hope for is some kind of reasonable gun regulations in blue state America, red state America is a complete right off.
You say “repugnant”, I say “humane and sensible.” It’s kind of funny that I always pegged you as one of the more intelligent conservatives on the board yet you honestly believe this bullshit.
Yep. More of the “teens can’t think for themselves” bullshit There is no evidence whatsoever of anyone in any way doing anything to these kids to manipulate them. But you have to posit a conspiracy theory. Their argument is so compelling that you have to come up with some nefarious thing that happened to refute them.
They are trying to stop the shootings. If they are wrong in how they are doing it, then you can provide another solution. But you can’t. You instead have to come up with some reasons to attack them. Some people attack them directly. Others come up with the idea that liberals have somehow mind controlled them.
But it’s all the same thing. It’s you not caring to try and stop the shootings, and condemning those who come up with solutions to try.
It may die down temporarily during the lull. But there will be another shooting. The desire to stop them will only grow, and thus the side offering a possible and tested solution will only get more powerful.
Are you saying that more shootings are necessary for full gun control to be passed?
The first few minutes of this commentary have more wisdom about guns, pro and con, than all the posts in all these threads put together. (In Part 2 of the commentary at the 5:20 mark he disposes of the “only criminals will have guns” meme by pointing out that the $1000 Bushmaster XM15 used at Sandy Hook costs $34,000 on the Australian black market: “If you have $34,000 you don’t need to be a criminal!”)
On the political front it has been a turnaround because the pro-gun groups have basically silenced the antigun lobby so much that the democrats basically dropped it in order to keep rural districts. Hillary was very anti gun and this issue hurt her in those areas.
I remember as a former NRA member we would get voter cards every year where they would rate local politicians on their gun rights issues.
Now things may have turned but I wonder if the DNC will put it on its official party platform in 2020.
But now the question is, would a democratic candidate for president even hope to win if they came out and said they would start a gun ban or confiscation program?
And you don’t need a $34,000 rifle to kill a bunch of kids. A $150 rifle probably would work just fine.
Unfortunately, it will require more people to be killed by these weapons before people take them seriously enough to pass policies that will decrease the shootings.
It’s like people think that it just won’t happen.
Right, but that’s the whole point. There are no $150 semi-automatic rifles in australia.
lovely post, Kimstu 