MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment
By Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/20/2014 - 9:22pm |Best piece I've seen on the NRA's history and tactics. Read it.
URL:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-second-amendment-106856.html
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Comments
With all the mass shootings, the public is paying attention. The public show of military style of weapons to defend law breaking rancher is rather unnerving for most in the general public. I am just wondering how many horrific events will happen before politicians are booted out for supporting unfettered gun ownership.
by trkingmomoe on Tue, 05/20/2014 - 10:25pm
You're thinking about it the wrong way. With a consistent and tenacious national gun-control campaign, voters will boot out gun rights extremists without any more horrific events. Without such a campaign, a whole parade of horrors won't change the political situation.
by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/20/2014 - 11:59pm
We have been fighting SYG here in Florida since before Jeb signed it into law. It has only taken traction this past year because of unnecessary loss of life and the poor out come of the trial. School is out so the Dream Defenders are beating the bushes to register voters for the fall. I have done my share of emails to local politicians at state and national. It has been a long slog so far for good gun laws and nothing has changed so far. We will turn out more democrats this mid term but gerrymandering will keep the state house under the crazies control with Crist veto to stop them. Nothing is going to change in the near future, so there will be more gun violence.
My thinking is set in stone. I had a bullet come through my kitchen ceiling. I hear gun fire sometimes at night. I have seen the swat team several times in my neighborhood. My grandkids were playing in the trailer park play ground when a punk jump the fence with a hand gun with police chasing him. It all went down in front of the kids. This trailer park is gated and I have good neighbors. That comprehensive campaign won't happen soon enough as far as I am concern.
by trkingmomoe on Wed, 05/21/2014 - 1:43am
Thank you for your efforts, momoe. We need more like you.
Sadly, the gun control campaign has been a sad shadow of the NRA-driven gun rights campaign. A horrific killing leads to a spark of agitation for new legislation, and then the politicians drift back to cynical complacency because, you know, gun control is not a winning issue.
Meanwhile, the NRA times its fear campaigns with exquisite precision, not when some lunatic arbitrarily decides to kill some kids but like clockwork, every two years, with the same scary message: the government is coming for your guns, then for your family.
Despite the electoral focus, the NRA's goal has never been to elect a Republican majority. You won't see them complaining that if they could just get rid of a few Democrats, they could finally get their gun rights laws. The NRA's goal is to elect a pro-gun majority. That's why the Democratic majority from 2006 to 2010 didn't do shit for gun control. Too many pro-gun Democrats. And, you know, gun control is not a winning issue.
There is only one way to pass serious gun control laws. Gun control has to become a winning issue again. Candidates have to run on a strong gun control platform and win. Democrats and even Republicans have to become afraid that if they vote against gun control, they will lose their seats.
This will require money of course, but money tends to follow popular causes, and Bloomberg is already pony-ing up. Mostly, it requires passionate leaders who fight for gun control in election after election and refuse to compromise principles to get some party politician elected. And, unfortunately, it takes time--years, even decades. It takes time to build a national movement. But without such a movement, you know, gun control is not a winning issue.
by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 05/21/2014 - 11:09am
Mike, I am seeing the passion in very young people for gun control. They spent their school years with police officers in their schools walking the halls every day. They have had to deal with lock downs at school that has left a big impression on them. 40 % of these young people have grown up in poverty like the neighborhood I live in. So they understand the stakes of what too many guns, in the wrong hands, can do to a community. They understand the unfairness of poverty in the political arena. Their friends and peers that grew up in the suburbs also understand. They have crazy uncles with arsenals and don't tread on me flags.
I don't think the politicians today realize what going to hit them in the next 5 or 10 years with this generational change. These kids are the boots on the ground here in Florida and they work hard at it. They are also turning out for elections. Look at the numbers in South Florida for the last 4 cycles. Democrats have increased their numbers in every election in the bottom half of the state including 2010 in Miami. The rest of the state in 2010 the democrat numbers collapsed. The environment is different this time so it won't happen in the fall.
Something must be going on in other parts of the country too, because the Democrats are willing to try to take on the Koch Bros. It is about time to drag those sociopaths out from behind their Kansas wizard of Oz curtain. It is long past time to start calling the GOP politicians, the Koch party, and hang John Birch Society around their necks. This will also help with getting good gun laws in this country.
by trkingmomoe on Wed, 05/21/2014 - 1:24pm
I hope you're right, and I've read articles about millennials' liberal attitudes, but gosh, isn't that always the case with the next generation? Once upon a time, the baby boomers were radical hippy pacifist environmentalists who were going to change America. Now, they disproportionately support the Tea Parties. I'm all for mobilizing the millennials, but I don't count on them to change the world.
As for taking on the Koch's, that's just politics. Democrats have everything to gain and nothing to lose by attacking them.
by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 05/21/2014 - 4:30pm
Great article, but I think there is something that really needs to be addressed when we try to understand this pull towards this belief in the need for guns.
As the article puts it in the end:
Earlier in the article this tidbit:
What is missing here is the changing of two big things. One is the faith in the federal government (which I would say reflected a general view of government on state and local level). One Michigan Study that was on the Gallup site shows the decline, with the question: How much of the time do you think you can trust government in Washington to do what is right -- just about always, most of the time, or only some of the time?
In 1958, 16% said "Always", and 57% said "Fair Amount." By 1970, these had dropped to 7% and 47% respectively, and by 1980, 2% and 23%.
At the same time crime rates were on the rise. While the population grew 13% between 1960 and 1970, violent crime rose by 156%, murder by 75%, and rape by 121%. Between 1970 and 1980, while the population increased by 11%, violent crime rose 81%, murder by 44% and rape by 118%. (The rape increase may be higher in a little part because of improvements that allowed women to report rape).
In other words, people felt less safe, less protected. We get Mr. Bronson in Death Wish in 1974, and Dirty Harry franchise began in 1971. I could go on but I think y'all get the point.
by Elusive Trope on Wed, 05/21/2014 - 2:58pm
That's such a great Lincoln quote. Thanks for citing it. Notice that Lincoln does not take the complacent attitude that public sentiment changes on its own. Public sentiment is molded.
Now apply this insight to the points you raise...
1. Americans have lost faith in government. How did public sentiment turn against government? Did it just happen? No, Lincoln would say, it was molded. It was molded by the left, who feared the military-industrial complex. It was molded by the right, who feared a socialist/secular-humanist conspiracy. The NRA exploited these sentiments and added its own twist: jack-booted thugs from the ATF. They framed the botched Waco raid, for example, as the first step toward totalitarianism. In other words, NRA fear tactics helped to mold public sentiment against government.
2. Crime spiked in the 1970s and 80s. That's statistical, so no molding there. But where did crime spike? In the inner cities. And where did the gun rights movement grow? In rural and suburban areas. Republican politicians and NRA leaders exploited anxiety about inner city crime to, once again, mold public opinion. And they continued to do so well past the peak of the crime wave.
So sure, public sentiment is affected by external events, but it is not determined by external events. Lincoln was right.
by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 05/21/2014 - 5:42pm