I've been meaning to start a thread on this topic, but I haven't had time to do the work I had in mind for the OP, re: citing some data about gun deaths/violence and so on. I'll get to that soon, unless someone else does first (please, thank you
)
However, in the wake of yet another mass shooting in Virginia Beach, I ran across
this biting commentary on gun culture by... David Frum?! (A former W. Bush speechwriter)
Quote:
The political map of the country is changing. The gun lobby used to be bipartisan. John Dingell, the legendary union Democrat from Michigan, served on the NRA’s board until 1994. An avid hunter, he earned an A+ rating from the lobby for many years. He helped lead Congress the NRA’s way against gun-safety proposals after the massacres at Columbine and Virginia Tech. But as the Democratic Party has become more urban—and as the NRA has veered ever more unmistakably toward white nationalism—the gun movement’s power has become tied ever more tightly to the Republican Party’s prospects. Those are seriously dimming. Democrats won more than 300 state legislative seats in 2018. They hold a majority of state attorney generalships. Republican-leaning women who used to accept NRA gun policy as part of the conservative coalition that held down their taxes have rebelled against the coalition in the age of Trump. Women are not only voting differently, but running for office in unprecedented numbers—and even fairly conservative women have zero use for the violent politics of the gun.
Quote:
On the morning after yet another terrible, preventable crime, the world looks bleak. For those in mourning, that bleakness will never end. Yet over the horizon, hope is glimmering. Those who have imposed this nightmare on the country are weakening. Those who reject the cult of the gun are rising. Tomorrow will be better.
I'm afraid Frum is probably underestimating the GOP here, even if he's right about the NRA. Anyway, it's interesting to see this perspective from him, so I thought I'd share it.