There are no reasonable gun owners coming to the rescue.. They are like the Texas cops waiting around while we all die.
This is a long time culture war where the end game must be fewer guns in public spaces.
This means changing generations of Americans who do believe a gun in the home makes them safer.
No it doesn't. Never has. Never will.
That means the #guncontrol movement needs to say that.
It doesn't.
Instead it speaks double speak from inside the Beltway pollster consultants that spew out words that no one believes is true.
Like. "gun safety" "gun sense" etc.
What the nation must do is remove guns from public spaces and lock guns in the home.
1) You can own all the guns you want! But!
2) You must license and register them and most importantly.
3). Keep them home, locked and away from the ammo.
You want guns? Have them but keep them at home and out of my supermarket and make sure they are locked to prevent the suicide of your teenager that just got dumped by their girlfriend.
Really? At Texas one parent had a concealed carry license and tried to go in, but was stoped by the police (that we are supposed to put all our trust into). It took an off-duty border patrol agent with a shotgun he borrowed from his barber, to get past the police (his badge helped) so he could save his wife/teacher and child/student and stop the killer.
Note also the following day, that a copy cat killer tried the same thing with an AR15 at a crowded party. A woman with a concealed carry license killed him before he could cause any damage.
Multiple mass-shootings have been stopped by armed citizens. In reality, most mass shootings are stopped by someone with a gun - often a citizen, frequently a cop, and sometimes, the criminal themselves.
The U.S. has "licensing and registering" in many places. Often the same places that have "gun" problems. Those laws do nothing, since they're not followed by the criminals (who actually commit the gun crimes).
Registration won't save any lives, and it only acts as a database to facilitate door-to-door confiscation.
It happened in New Orleans after Katrina (despite it being an illegal confiscation), so there's no reason to think a "forward thinking" politician might not leverage another crisis to do it again.
If you want the support of gun owners and their supporters, then come up with something that will actually have a positive impact and not be onerous.
And stop parroting long-debunked talking points about a gun in the house making you less safe. Even if there were a smidgen of truth to it, if the time comes that you need it, and in today's world threats can come from many different directions, you would curse yourself for not having one.
Fascinating and excellent article Micah. I have been mulling this one a lot as someone who works in the climate space and wondering how we just keep getting stuck. Monoculture and donor driven thinking seem to be a huge huge factor.
Posting for fellow frustrated activists in our Grassroots Messaging Works Slack, of course. But many worried folks crave such specific insight now that they are paying closer attention.
This could be the start of a great PhD thesis. Would be interesting to compare to Black Lives Matter and other movements vs monoculture to see what could be different? And could this monoculture become a movement? What would it take in your mind Micah?
I have some hunches. The first is generational: who gets captured in the NPIF and how long they stay there and why. Second is situational: how does a new critical mass form. Third relates to capacity: how strong is the fortress at the center of the monoculture? One could expand the question to also look at movements that haven't become nearly as captured--gay rights, for ex. The existence of a vibrant local, cultural subculture matters. Gun control is a tough one because the places where gun violence is endemic are also marginalized by our racialized capitalism and our money-dominated political system, but the places where excess volunteer energy is available are white suburbs.
Excellent piece, lots to digest. The way the Supreme Court is presently constructed does throw a very large wrench into hopes of any sort of concrete legislation. The best idea for now seems to be working on the local level to not only pass regional legislation, but support survivor counseling, local business gun bans, etc... Warning: Plug -- Please check out our Substack, as I think many reading this would be interested. This is the Substack for GVPedia: https://armedwithreason.substack.com/
Wonderful piece. One reason I think co-optation has been particularly effective in the gun-violence movement is that the left (by which I do not mean Michael Bloomberg) has struggled to develop its own approach to the issue, one that links gun culture to militarism and over-policing. So the Parkland kids were trying to not only try to build independent organization from scratch but to do so without the kind of lode-star demands (think Medicare for All or Green New Deal) that have helped emerging leftists find their way in other arenas. A tried to make a contribution to this for for Jacobin a few years ago when things looked a bit more hopeful: https://jacobin.com/2020/01/gun-violence-socialist-approach-firearms-michael-bloomberg
There are no reasonable gun owners coming to the rescue.. They are like the Texas cops waiting around while we all die.
This is a long time culture war where the end game must be fewer guns in public spaces.
This means changing generations of Americans who do believe a gun in the home makes them safer.
No it doesn't. Never has. Never will.
That means the #guncontrol movement needs to say that.
It doesn't.
Instead it speaks double speak from inside the Beltway pollster consultants that spew out words that no one believes is true.
Like. "gun safety" "gun sense" etc.
What the nation must do is remove guns from public spaces and lock guns in the home.
1) You can own all the guns you want! But!
2) You must license and register them and most importantly.
3). Keep them home, locked and away from the ammo.
You want guns? Have them but keep them at home and out of my supermarket and make sure they are locked to prevent the suicide of your teenager that just got dumped by their girlfriend.
Really? At Texas one parent had a concealed carry license and tried to go in, but was stoped by the police (that we are supposed to put all our trust into). It took an off-duty border patrol agent with a shotgun he borrowed from his barber, to get past the police (his badge helped) so he could save his wife/teacher and child/student and stop the killer.
Note also the following day, that a copy cat killer tried the same thing with an AR15 at a crowded party. A woman with a concealed carry license killed him before he could cause any damage.
Multiple mass-shootings have been stopped by armed citizens. In reality, most mass shootings are stopped by someone with a gun - often a citizen, frequently a cop, and sometimes, the criminal themselves.
The U.S. has "licensing and registering" in many places. Often the same places that have "gun" problems. Those laws do nothing, since they're not followed by the criminals (who actually commit the gun crimes).
No.
Registration won't save any lives, and it only acts as a database to facilitate door-to-door confiscation.
It happened in New Orleans after Katrina (despite it being an illegal confiscation), so there's no reason to think a "forward thinking" politician might not leverage another crisis to do it again.
If you want the support of gun owners and their supporters, then come up with something that will actually have a positive impact and not be onerous.
And stop parroting long-debunked talking points about a gun in the house making you less safe. Even if there were a smidgen of truth to it, if the time comes that you need it, and in today's world threats can come from many different directions, you would curse yourself for not having one.
https://armedwithreason.substack.com/p/the-defensive-gun-use-lie-and-the?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fdefensive%2520gun%2520use&utm_medium=reader2
Food for thought, Micah. I'm also wondering why the media covers COVID so differently from the twin epidemics of mass shootings and political inertia, which are so much more deadly to our democracy. (I wrote a piece about it for CTNewsJunkie: https://ctnewsjunkie.com/2022/05/26/op-ed-neutral-coverage-of-a-mass-shooting-enough-is-enough/.)
Fascinating and excellent article Micah. I have been mulling this one a lot as someone who works in the climate space and wondering how we just keep getting stuck. Monoculture and donor driven thinking seem to be a huge huge factor.
Let's talk!
Thank you for such careful journalism, Micah. How might this piece find a larger audience?
Well, mainly just by sharing it with others!
Posting for fellow frustrated activists in our Grassroots Messaging Works Slack, of course. But many worried folks crave such specific insight now that they are paying closer attention.
This could be the start of a great PhD thesis. Would be interesting to compare to Black Lives Matter and other movements vs monoculture to see what could be different? And could this monoculture become a movement? What would it take in your mind Micah?
I have some hunches. The first is generational: who gets captured in the NPIF and how long they stay there and why. Second is situational: how does a new critical mass form. Third relates to capacity: how strong is the fortress at the center of the monoculture? One could expand the question to also look at movements that haven't become nearly as captured--gay rights, for ex. The existence of a vibrant local, cultural subculture matters. Gun control is a tough one because the places where gun violence is endemic are also marginalized by our racialized capitalism and our money-dominated political system, but the places where excess volunteer energy is available are white suburbs.
Excellent piece, lots to digest. The way the Supreme Court is presently constructed does throw a very large wrench into hopes of any sort of concrete legislation. The best idea for now seems to be working on the local level to not only pass regional legislation, but support survivor counseling, local business gun bans, etc... Warning: Plug -- Please check out our Substack, as I think many reading this would be interested. This is the Substack for GVPedia: https://armedwithreason.substack.com/
Wonderful piece. One reason I think co-optation has been particularly effective in the gun-violence movement is that the left (by which I do not mean Michael Bloomberg) has struggled to develop its own approach to the issue, one that links gun culture to militarism and over-policing. So the Parkland kids were trying to not only try to build independent organization from scratch but to do so without the kind of lode-star demands (think Medicare for All or Green New Deal) that have helped emerging leftists find their way in other arenas. A tried to make a contribution to this for for Jacobin a few years ago when things looked a bit more hopeful: https://jacobin.com/2020/01/gun-violence-socialist-approach-firearms-michael-bloomberg