I just want to talk about this politically. Is this unusual? Did this happen after the Sikh shooting or the Aurora shooting? Does is have any significance?
I’m not interested in yet another gun rights or gun control argument. This is just about how this is going politically.
There was nothing to be gained from it politically. Despite a great deal of hollering from both sides of the gun debate over the last few days, I doubt the line has budged. The pro-gun side is still pro and the anti-gun side is still anti.
I agree that there was nothing to be gained, but the anti-gun people showed up. And it seems (note the “seems.” I’m hardly keeping track) that the NRA usually wouldn’t turn down an offer like this.
Sorry, I forgot the link in the OP: David Gregory: No Pro-Gun Rights Senators Would Go On 'Meet The Press' | HuffPost Latest News
It seems a few congress critters are re-thinking their views, either as a reaction to the tragedy or perhaps as a cynical nod to public sentiment. From the New York Times:
Accepting this particular invitation would have been foolish. There’s an feeding frenzy of gun-grabbing hysteria at the moment. The invitation wasn’t really for a reasoned debate, it was a request for a public whipping boy.
You’re right, there’s an absolute absence of any discussion.
Because people from the NRA and the like push phrases like “feeding frenzy of gun-grabbing hysteria” to avoid it.
But - that in itself is a new attitude. Pro-gun politicians have never seen themselves as “whipping boys” before after previous shootings, have they?
I think it would be a strategical mistake for the Democrats to push to far on anti-gun legislation here but there does seem to be a new wind blowing.
Can anyone provide any context as to how, if at all, this differs from reactions to previous incidents?
The NRA’s power is not illusory. The Democratic Party found this out after they passed The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act in '94. Bill Clinton himself admits as much in his autobiography.
That was before widespread internet use, too. The NRA did that with magazine articles and mass mailings.
I agree it would have been foolish. It is far easier to say that the deaths of 20 children are well worth our gun rights on a message board than to say this in front of the national press.
BTW, how many deaths before the “hysteria” is justified? 20 is clearly not enough. 40? 100? 1,000? 3,000?
Have you stopped beating your wife?
No one seemed to want to talk about increasing controls on guns after the Aurora incident. But (most) human beings feel a lot more strongly about innocent children being slaughtered than moviegoers, it seems.
I’d like to keep this thread on the political fallout, please.
Australia and the UK both enacted different gun control laws as a result of this sort of mass killing. That hardly means the same thing will happen in the US, but it lends credence to the idea that big stories can change everything. (Look to 911 and the shoe bomber for other examples.)
It shows a cowardly lack of courage. If guns were so great, they’d go on and defend it, especially after a national tragedy like this where the nation’s attention would be most focused on this problem. Instead they are content to try to bury this, like the NRA shut down their Facebook and Twitter feeds, so that once things blow over, they can get back to the business of selling us things that kill ourselves
One might as easily say that the anti’s who did show up displayed a reprehensible willingness to wallow in the blood of children in order to further their political agenda; an activity that anybody with a shred of decency and decorum would find repugnant. Are we done playing that game now?
No, because I agree that shutting down your Facebook page is a cowardly move. Unless you’re also disbanding the organization because you’ve suddenly realized that gun control is a good idea after all, crawling away with your tail between your legs makes you look like you only stand behind your principles when the going is good. When the going gets tough, the NRA hides from the Internet, apparently.
Why do many pro-gun people like myself step back and keep silent in times like this?
Because there’s nothing to be said.
Anti-Gunners spin it as “what do you have to say THIS TIME!”
I say that I’m tired of saying the same damned thing over and over, one incident doesn’t change anything, and you’re not really listening if you have to keep asking the same thing time and time again every time something else pops up.
Why are there incidents like this?
Primarily the Media. We’ve become a Celebrity Culture. Anything for attention, whether good or bad. And shooting up a school is someone screaming “I’m going to make the world listen to me!”.
The media sensationalizes these incidents. They traumatize the nation and the world because it SELLS. It makes money.
And each time something like this happens and gets all that attention, some other sick individual who thinks no one gives a shit about them* decides “Hey, that sounds like just the ticket for me!”
If it wasn’t guns, it would be knives, swords, bombs, plowing cars into crowds, etc. The gun only makes it easier for them to kill themselves at the end of it.
In sheer political terms, Sandy Hook will be looked back upon as a turning point.
Just as politicians have been itching for a time to overthrow Grover Norquist and seized upon the election as the opportunity, politicians have been looking for a situation so heinous that they could survive taking a stand against the NRA. This is it. With public faces like Joe Scarborough reversing his stand from someone who had “received the NRA’s highest ratings over four terms in Congress” providing cover, the pendulum will start to swing.
Progress will be as slow as the campaigns for gay marriage and decriminalized marijuana, but we’re heading for a future in which limiting access to guns will be the norm.
That’s the best-case scenario. The worst case is one in which there are two camps in America: a side that says “the only way you’ll get my gun is to pry it from my cold, dead fingers” and a side that says, “Fine with us.”
If the NRA has any political sense - that’s a big if - it will opt for the best case.
Unfortunately, the NRA is run by a bunch of rabid morons who make the Tea Party look moderate. And I say that as a Benefactor Member. I don’t foresee any changes on that front unless the membership takes things in hand at the next election. Even then, it would take a sea change, as the election process is fairly well rigged.
He has nothing to lose as he is a former congressman. Now he is a TV personality where controversy = ratings.