I'm not for gun control so maybe I'm being a little harsh here, but it seems like the kind of thing that would be ripe for a mass movement and despite the fact that so many politically minded people have been focusing on it for decades nothing of that nature has materialized. Maybe instead of begging the Democrats to do something on social media or setting up another 401c(3) for the liberal bourgeoisie to use as a tax haven it would behoove people to organize around this issue and demand something be done about the mass violence in this country as an organized mass of people.
Mass shootings suck. Kids getting shot sucks. Radlib social media or blaming the politicians isn't going to stop any of it though.
Edit: to put it another way, tweets are about as powerful as thoughts and prayers
Go looking for direct actions against firearms stores. The only things I've ever seen are a bare handful of die-ins. No one is out there fire bombing gun stores, or welding the doors shut, or driving trucks in to them, or stink bombing htem, or shooting the owners.
Democrats only care when it makes the news. And what they care about is a wildly distorted picture of gun violence in America - Only 5-600 people are killed in mass shootings each year out of total of about 45,000 firearms homicides. Only a tiny fraction of those homicides are committed with rifles, and only a fraction of that with AR15s.
But they focus entirely on mass shootings and act as though AR15s are being used in homicides all the time, instead of handguns being the murder weapon 97% of the time.
Personally my theory right now is that after decades of trying to use "inner city violence" as their cudgel for gun control and finding out no one cared that much, they switched to sensationalizing the rare but heart wrenching school shootings and turning the AR15 in to a symbol of "us vs them" relative to the GOP to get their base fired up and donating money again.
But they've never been serious about it. The Dems could have passed a ban during Obama's presidency, the way Clinton did, but they took no action. And now that the GOP controls the house and the SCOTUS everything they say is meaningless hot air. They'll cry big crocodile tears about how terrible it all is, but no one is out there walking in to a gun store with a suicide vest, and democratic politicians won't even consider trying to mobilize their voters for aggressive street actions.
I agree that the Democratic Party isn't serious about it, but there's all these regular non-party people who seem to think that if they make posts, spread awareness, and vote they'll somehow get to gun control. Unless they're all full of shit too I would hope they would figure out that they actually need to organize and demonstrate to get something. It's honestly a little disheartening that they haven't figured that out yet because it demonstrates just how politically demobilized the average USian is .
Like the vast majority of American liberals their entire world view regarding politics is performative marches and voting. I doubt one in one hundred of them has ever considered something as simple as chaining the doors of a gun shop closed. And I imagine any time that any of them does independently discover the concept of direct action they're either immediately talked down by their civility loving associates or their energy is coopted by Democrat party functionaries.
I'm sure the deaths of school children are very emotionally upsetting to them, but for all practical intents and purposes the democratic base have no agency and no ability to act.
A big obstacle to having a productive discourse around this topic is the prohibition on just admitting that the constitution sucks, as evidenced by the apparent requirement that we have to periodically sacrifice our children to rightwing psychopaths.
Maybe. I would think there would be a significant amount of organizing on schools among students and faculty before it got to the streets though and there doesn't actually seem to be much of that. NEA and probably a couple of other unions have endorsed the position but unless you can rally the rank and file to the cause the unions won't actually stick their necks out. Instead it seems to be all backroom lobbying and big money non-profits trying to win something which is just never gonna happen unless capital flips on its head.
I'm not for gun control so maybe I'm being a little harsh here, but it seems like the kind of thing that would be ripe for a mass movement and despite the fact that so many politically minded people have been focusing on it for decades nothing of that nature has materialized. Maybe instead of begging the Democrats to do something on social media or setting up another 401c(3) for the liberal bourgeoisie to use as a tax haven it would behoove people to organize around this issue and demand something be done about the mass violence in this country as an organized mass of people.
Mass shootings suck. Kids getting shot sucks. Radlib social media or blaming the politicians isn't going to stop any of it though.
Edit: to put it another way, tweets are about as powerful as thoughts and prayers
Go looking for direct actions against firearms stores. The only things I've ever seen are a bare handful of die-ins. No one is out there fire bombing gun stores, or welding the doors shut, or driving trucks in to them, or stink bombing htem, or shooting the owners.
Democrats only care when it makes the news. And what they care about is a wildly distorted picture of gun violence in America - Only 5-600 people are killed in mass shootings each year out of total of about 45,000 firearms homicides. Only a tiny fraction of those homicides are committed with rifles, and only a fraction of that with AR15s.
But they focus entirely on mass shootings and act as though AR15s are being used in homicides all the time, instead of handguns being the murder weapon 97% of the time.
Personally my theory right now is that after decades of trying to use "inner city violence" as their cudgel for gun control and finding out no one cared that much, they switched to sensationalizing the rare but heart wrenching school shootings and turning the AR15 in to a symbol of "us vs them" relative to the GOP to get their base fired up and donating money again.
But they've never been serious about it. The Dems could have passed a ban during Obama's presidency, the way Clinton did, but they took no action. And now that the GOP controls the house and the SCOTUS everything they say is meaningless hot air. They'll cry big crocodile tears about how terrible it all is, but no one is out there walking in to a gun store with a suicide vest, and democratic politicians won't even consider trying to mobilize their voters for aggressive street actions.
It's all political theater.
I agree that the Democratic Party isn't serious about it, but there's all these regular non-party people who seem to think that if they make posts, spread awareness, and vote they'll somehow get to gun control. Unless they're all full of shit too I would hope they would figure out that they actually need to organize and demonstrate to get something. It's honestly a little disheartening that they haven't figured that out yet because it demonstrates just how politically demobilized the average USian is .
Like the vast majority of American liberals their entire world view regarding politics is performative marches and voting. I doubt one in one hundred of them has ever considered something as simple as chaining the doors of a gun shop closed. And I imagine any time that any of them does independently discover the concept of direct action they're either immediately talked down by their civility loving associates or their energy is coopted by Democrat party functionaries.
I'm sure the deaths of school children are very emotionally upsetting to them, but for all practical intents and purposes the democratic base have no agency and no ability to act.
A big obstacle to having a productive discourse around this topic is the prohibition on just admitting that the constitution sucks, as evidenced by the apparent requirement that we have to periodically sacrifice our children to rightwing psychopaths.
i imagine large protests for gun control would be a prime target for mass shootings, this is america after all
Maybe. I would think there would be a significant amount of organizing on schools among students and faculty before it got to the streets though and there doesn't actually seem to be much of that. NEA and probably a couple of other unions have endorsed the position but unless you can rally the rank and file to the cause the unions won't actually stick their necks out. Instead it seems to be all backroom lobbying and big money non-profits trying to win something which is just never gonna happen unless capital flips on its head.
If they actually cared and thought it was important they'd consider that an acceptable sacrifice.