Suppose that one day someone carried out a mass shooting, with the specifically stated motive of “Causing enough mayhem to force society to finally adopt gun control once and for all” - or maybe “a shooting done with assault rifles, to force our politicians to ban assault rifles.”
(Or any other hypothetical - doesn’t have to be about gun control, but basically, a bad deed done in the name of promoting a good cause.)
Now, suppose you are a president, senator, representative or mayor - how would you tackle the issue in the wake of the attacks? The perpetrator has effectively poisoned the well; he demands that government adopt gun control, but “giving the perpetrator what he wanted” will now be political suicide. Do you try to promote gun control, but disassociate it from the perp?
I am also curious what Dopers think society’s reaction would be if someone did carry out a shooting spree under the guises above (or any other attack done in the name of a good cause.) Is American society likely to break in favor of the perp’s agenda, or against it?
I’ve imagined a scenario in which somebody carries out a mass shooting with a 5-shot revolver. The purpose would be to show that all the calls for banning “assault rifles,” bump stocks, etc. are misguided at best.
Depends on where the shooting happened. If it’s just at some mall or daycare somewhere the shooter will just be written off as a nut (much to the chagrin of peaceful nuts everywhere) and he’ll be mostly forgotten in a week. But as the meme says, “If there were 17 bodies on the senate floor we would be having a very different conversation.” Make it 51 bodies and I don’t think it would matter what the shooter’s reasons were, ammo would be pulled from shelves and gun sales would freeze.
If I was a pro-gun-control politician I’d steal the anti-gun-control playbook and use the tactics they usually use to downplay the political damage. Then I’d wait for the next shooting to occur to draw unambiguous support for my cause.
If I was an anti-gun-control politician, I’d treat it like any other shooting. Even if the shooter in this case was a member of the other side, the shooting itself would hurt my cause. So the political effects of the shooting would be a wash for me.
As a president, senator, representative or mayor I continue to promote what I see as the best policies. If people have let their emotions get the better of them and now oppose gun control en masse to spite a mass murderer, then let them vote me out.
As to what people would do, some would:
deflect and stick to their old pro-gun stance. “See! Gun grabbers are the real villains!”
see it as the aberration it is and stick to their old stance, whichever that is
deflect and stick to their old ant-gun stance. “False flag, false flag! He was obviously actually pro-guns!”
I’m not sure about that. I think if there was a mass shooting in the Senate, the result would be fortifying the Capitol rather than going after gun use in general.
I’ve thought of a way in which a mass shooting would cause a swing towards gun control, but I don’t feel comfortable posting it on a message board.
Politicians know enough to adjust their message in accordance with the current public mood. Anti-gun-control people generally stay quiet in the aftermath of a shooting because they know it’s a bad time to push their agenda. Pro-gun-control people, on the other hand, push their agenda in the aftermath of a public shooting because they know the public mood is in their favor. But both sides the public mood will revert back to normal in a week or two.
True, but almost nobody believed their ‘false-flag’ lunacy. In this hypothetical, though, the shooter would make it clear to all the public that he was killing people in the name of gun control, and all society would know it.
It’s twisted reasoning. Charlie Manson had people killed to start Helter-Skelter, a race war that would leave him and his followers in charge of everything. It must have been a good cause because the Beatles told him to do it. This is what happens when warped minds attempt to reason.
I remember that. Part of me feels bad the guy wasn’t a competent shot and that nobody else followed his lead. Another part of me hates that part of me.
