No, I don't think Michael Moore went too far on Piers Morgan's show last night:
Too Far? Michael Moore: If Gunman Killed Harry Reid's Grandkids, He Wouldn't Drop Assault Weapons BanThat point may have been made tastelessly, but it's valid. If that happened, this issue would matter a hell of a lot more to Harry Reid than it does now.
... Morgan brought up Rob Portman's gay marriage reversal coming from his own son being gay, and couldn't help but wonder how much the [gun] debate would change if there were members of Congress whose children were victims of gun violence. Moore was a lot more graphic in his assessment.
"If a man with an assault weapon goes in to the school where Harry Reid's grandchildren go to school tomorrow and kills his grandchildren, would he go in front of his microphone at 5:00 and say, 'I know how Dianne [Feinstein] had to witness the mayor getting murdered, and I just--my grandchildren just got killed today, but, you know, we can't get it passed 'cause we just don't have the votes."
But he still wouldn't be able to get sixty votes for the assault weapons ban. And sooner or later -- probably sooner -- he'd acknowledge that.
It would take sixty massacres affecting senators' children and grandchildren to get cloture for a vote on an assault weapons ban. Or, well, maybe not sixty -- Harry Reid says the ban has fewer than forty votes. So it would take more than twenty massacres involving senators' families to get the ban through the Senate.
Or, of course (as I said last night), it would take a genuine change in public opinion. The number of one-issue pro-gun-control voters would need to rival the number of pro-gun voters. I still don't know how we get to that point. I don't know how we increase the number of committed gun-control voters. I don't know how we reduce the number of committed NRA voters -- polls say the NRA is out of step even with gun owners on many issues relating to guns, so where are the waves of disgusted gun owners forgoing their membership?
Any ideas for how to change this? I'm all ears.
A friend sent e this interview a few weeks ago and it points to an interesting potential.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-08/how-brazil-exploited-sexual-insecurity-to-curb-guns-an-interview-with-antonio-bandeira.html
Steve,
ReplyDeleteHarry Reid's grandchildren?
Don't make me laugh!!!
As long as it's the children and grandchildren of Democratic politicians, the Reich-wing and gun-nuts will only revel in the agony of those "others."
They will take glee in others misery.
It would have to be the massacres of scores of Republican politicians children and grandchildren, before the tide might turn.
But there is something else, though it will take time:
I suspect this problem will eventually be resolved through attrition.
Less and less people own guns.
And far less young people want guns in their lives.
And, since every week, more and more gun-nuts shoot more of themselves, their family members, and friends, than us sane folks, eventually there'll be too many 2nd Amendment Darwin Award Winners, to keep gun manufacturing in mass quantities, by marketing and selling to those who are already dead, viable.
Of course, the sad thing is that a lot of innocent lives will be lost before there are enough 2nd Amendment Darwin Award Winners, to make manufacturing, marketing, and selling guns, uneconomical.
If Newtown didn't stop the NRA, and the continuing carnage in the ensuing 3 months, only the market force known as "death," specifically to their own dwindling membership, will make an impact.
That, or lunatics targeting the offspring of Republican politicians.
Why is he blaming Harry Reid?
ReplyDeleteMy God, that was ugly.
Well, most liberals are blaming Harry Reid, aren't they? Just not as graphically. Oh, except the New York daily News, which is blaming Obama.
ReplyDeleteAnother example of the eternal divide between those who have to count votes (within the Senate and/or within their districts/states) to politically survive or accomplish something, and those who do not. The only realistic assumption about any politician is and must be that her/his first priority is to avoid involuntary loss of office; we can like that or not, but with very few exceptions it's a fact. Ergo, if anyone is to blame, it's the pro-gun-control voters who have failed to sufficiently organize so as to pose an equal electoral counter-threat to the NRA.
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