usmbguest5318
Gold Member
It doesn't take much to see what's driving the massive increase in the nation's appetite for tighter gun control measures.
But M. Stoneman Douglas is a public school, and though it's students/families are well-off, mostly, they aren't in the same social cohort as are the kids/families at the nation's posh day-hop schools, or worse one of the elite boarding schools nestled in the bucolic solitude of America's countrysides and having students hailing from posh families around the world. The minute, God forbid, a gunman shoots a kid(s) at any one of those schools, the gun debate will come to a screeching halt because people paying $50K+/year in tuition, nevermind room, board and activity fees and cost, will demand and receive, as with everything else, precisely the action they want to receive. The instant that happens, the blinders and gossamer veil that allows the 1% of the 1% to forbear what in their hearts they know is the spurious "guns aren't the problem."
There're "woke" folks in the donor class; there's no question about that. As yet, however, they and their "un-woke" peers have been essentially untouched by random gun violence. The donor class isn't immune to one-off shootings and other violence -- Menendez brothers, the Kalorama shooting, and so on -- but as yet elite bastions of safety and solitude have yet to have their denizens become targets of gun violence. Poor and middle class have endured gun violence of all sorts for decades; the country's economic elites have not really not, and even considering their exposure to non-random events (e.g., Arlington shooting) and special circumstances (e.g., POTUSes and the occasional political assassination mostly) not anything like an Aurora, Columbine, Parkland, etc.
I absolutely hope that nobody else will have to suffer shootings of any sort. If/when I ever hear of another mass shooting, it'll be too soon. That said, I do fear the only other thing, besides what I've described above, that will move Congress members irrevocably out of the political quagmire into which they've set themselves is the 2018 plebiscite outcome sending a clear message that a material share of the citizenry's GOP has abandoned the NRA.
Another question is whether GOP (would-be) elected office holders will pull on the NRA the same "lip service"/bait and switch stunt it pulls with the general electorate. How might they do so? Simply toe the line until it's too late for incumbents to be "primaried" in advance of the 2018 general election. That is, after all, the only thing GOP incumbents have to fear from the NRA. After that, they can quickly pass whatever gun control they can come up with and watch for two years as the NRA tries to convince people that whatever got passed should be repealed. That's two years to put the NRA on the defensive, two years to watch the NRA challenge the legislation in the SCOTUS (a really risky gambit, especially if it comes before 2020, because Dems and Progressive Indies have a material headcount advantage), etc.
- Poll: Support for gun control hits record high
- CNN Poll: Seven in 10 favor tighter gun laws in wake of Parkland shooting - CNNPolitics
But M. Stoneman Douglas is a public school, and though it's students/families are well-off, mostly, they aren't in the same social cohort as are the kids/families at the nation's posh day-hop schools, or worse one of the elite boarding schools nestled in the bucolic solitude of America's countrysides and having students hailing from posh families around the world. The minute, God forbid, a gunman shoots a kid(s) at any one of those schools, the gun debate will come to a screeching halt because people paying $50K+/year in tuition, nevermind room, board and activity fees and cost, will demand and receive, as with everything else, precisely the action they want to receive. The instant that happens, the blinders and gossamer veil that allows the 1% of the 1% to forbear what in their hearts they know is the spurious "guns aren't the problem."
There're "woke" folks in the donor class; there's no question about that. As yet, however, they and their "un-woke" peers have been essentially untouched by random gun violence. The donor class isn't immune to one-off shootings and other violence -- Menendez brothers, the Kalorama shooting, and so on -- but as yet elite bastions of safety and solitude have yet to have their denizens become targets of gun violence. Poor and middle class have endured gun violence of all sorts for decades; the country's economic elites have not really not, and even considering their exposure to non-random events (e.g., Arlington shooting) and special circumstances (e.g., POTUSes and the occasional political assassination mostly) not anything like an Aurora, Columbine, Parkland, etc.
I absolutely hope that nobody else will have to suffer shootings of any sort. If/when I ever hear of another mass shooting, it'll be too soon. That said, I do fear the only other thing, besides what I've described above, that will move Congress members irrevocably out of the political quagmire into which they've set themselves is the 2018 plebiscite outcome sending a clear message that a material share of the citizenry's GOP has abandoned the NRA.
Another question is whether GOP (would-be) elected office holders will pull on the NRA the same "lip service"/bait and switch stunt it pulls with the general electorate. How might they do so? Simply toe the line until it's too late for incumbents to be "primaried" in advance of the 2018 general election. That is, after all, the only thing GOP incumbents have to fear from the NRA. After that, they can quickly pass whatever gun control they can come up with and watch for two years as the NRA tries to convince people that whatever got passed should be repealed. That's two years to put the NRA on the defensive, two years to watch the NRA challenge the legislation in the SCOTUS (a really risky gambit, especially if it comes before 2020, because Dems and Progressive Indies have a material headcount advantage), etc.
