Published on Portside (https://portside.org/)
The NRA Should
Have Never Messed With the Parkland Kids
SemDem
May
12, 2019
DailyKos
I guess the NRA
thought the Parkland school shooting would follow the script of
every other massacre:
- Americans
would call for our politicians to finally do something
- The
NRA would then fundraise off the tragedy,
and donate to their politicians to keep them in line
- The
NRA politicians would then offer thoughts and prayers to
the victims
- Rightwing
pundits would then viciously attack the victims who dared to
demand that more be done….and then attack
them again… and again
- Americans
would then decide, once again, that it's just best to throw up their
hands and move on. Politicians would follow and give up
any renewed effort to pass gun safety laws.
- Repeat
steps 1-5 for the next big massacre the following week
After the Parkland
killings, the NRA seemed to be humming along on schedule. They broke
a record in fundraising right after the shooting, and Trump and Florida's
politicians offered their thoughts and prayers. When the high school
students started speaking out for politicians to do more, the NRA attacked them
on cue.
They
ran attack ads, called the survivors “civil terrorists,” and
even peddled an outrageous conspiracy theory to Alex Jones that
the Parkland students might have been actors. That should have done it. But it was step #5
where things went off the rails. The students refused to go along with the
script.The students
targeted the NRA, and those who kowtowed to them.
Emma Gonzalez literally
called BS on inactive politicians. Her followers on Twitter grew
larger than the NRA’s in just under a month. She demanded and got several
companies to sever ties with the NRA. Dozens of companies, including
United, Delta, Enterprise, Wyndham, First National Bank, and Alamo cut ties and
left. Eventually, even FedEx had finally had enough of the
backlash.
Cameron
Kasky humiliated
Marco Rubio on national TV by asking him to commit to not taking any more
NRA money. (He wouldn’t). Kasky attended the State of the Union and
the House Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence.
Sarah Chadwick directly
went after Dana Loesch and her despicable victim shaming.
Tyah-Amoy Roberts called
for publicizing her photo if she dies from gun violence, and used her platform
to bring attention to black communities being disproportionately
affected by gun violence.
David Hogg continues to speak
out against gun violence to any venue that will have him,
despite violent threats against both his and his mother’s
life. Ingraham tried to carry the NRA’s water by taunting him, and it
backfired spectacularly.
Jaclyn
Corin, who
said “keep screaming at your Congressman,” made YouTube videos with
millions of views attacking the NRA, and successfully fought off the gun
lobby’s plan to put armed officers in Chatham schools.
These are just
some of the amazing children from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The kids
organized March for Our Lives. The NRA actually tried to stop it by
going after the teen organizers, ironically saying that it was being led by
“violent radicals.” They failed, as it became one of the largest
protests in US history with 2 million participants. It didn’t stop there.
The protest launched a movement, marchforourlives.com, which has
local chapters that are dedicated to taking on the NRA.
The kids were
relentless and often faced off with NRA spokespeople or politicians in national
forums. They shamed Rick Scott into quietly canceling his appearance
at the NRA’s annual conference. (Others withdrew soon afterward.) Rightwing
Florida politicians actually discussed supporting a ban on
assault rifles. Change was coming.
Then something
happened. Gun control.
After years of
signing ridiculous laws that made it easier and easier for mentally unbalanced
people to obtain firearms and go on shooting sprees; Rick Scott, who
wanted to be Florida’s new senator, was forced into signing into law our first
significant gun restrictions in decades. The minimum age to buy an assault
rifle in Florida is now 21, and there is a mandatory three-day waiting period.
The law also banned bump stocks, which are devices that enable
semiautomatic rifles to operate like they are fully automatic. Finally, the
law created a system so that high risk, unstable individuals could be
barred from owning a firearm.
Even Donald Trump,
fearing the growing support for a law banning bump stocks, instituted a
federal regulation banning those devices.
The kids weren’t
finished.
They worked
tirelessly in registering students across the nation for the 2018 midterm
elections. They launched a “Road to Change” voter registration tour last
summer. Their work delivered young voters to the polls in record numbers, which
helped elect 64 freshman Democrats and forced over 30-backed NRA
politicians out of office.
They can’t say
they weren’t warned:
Florida school shooting survivor: “To Congress… you have the power to
change this and if you don’t, then we will change you. We may be too young to
vote, but soon we will be able to vote and we will vote you out.” https://t.co/3HR3rc1S7x pic.twitter.com/NdKNuRfbUF
— CNN
(@CNN) February 21, 2018
For the first
time, an Associated Press survey showed that eight percent of
midterm voters named guns the nation’s top issue, with those voters
overwhelmingly breaking for Democrats 4 to 1. In the past, politicians wouldn’t
touch gun control, but eighty percent of the new freshman Democrats actually
ran on a gun control platform. Not only that, the NRA was actually
outspent by gun control groups for the first time in an election. Welcome
to the new normal.
The NRA is
unaccustomed to not being feared, and it’s truly amazing what just a
little pressure has done to them.
The NRA leadership
has turned on each other in an ugly civil war and is bleeding money. In
2016, the NRA was able to spend around 70
million mobilizing voters and buying online ads, but now,
that’s roughly what they are losing annually. The group’s free
fall has exposed extreme financial mismanagement. Excessive salaries,
backroom deals, sexual-harassment charges (of course),
ridiculous clothing allowances, expensive travel, and a secretive PR firm that
refuses to say where its 40 million dollars annual budget goes.
The NRA brand is
toxic, revenues are dropping, recruitment is way down, and the cherry on
top—they are finally being investigated.
NRA's shady financial dealings are a problem if you are declaring yourself
a non-profit. NY AG thinks so as well: https://t.co/5JDt3OhohQ
—
TheSeminoleDemocrat (@TheSemDem) May 12, 2019
There is no way
they will be able to support Donald Trump at anywhere close to the level they
did back in 2016, which is why he’s screaming at them to “get their act
together.” The NRA won’t be able to count on Russian money bailing
them out this time.
As always, the
kids are the ones leading the change. They showed the gun lobby was never
anything to have feared and should have been taken on years ago.
I
suppose since the kids have to risk facing a maniac with an assault rifle
every day, the creepy old gun lobbyist doesn’t quite instill the same
amount of terror.
To these amazing
kids and this new generation:
I’m sorry our own
politicians didn’t do their jobs and stand up for you. I’m sorry we had to rely
on our own damn children to fight for legislation instead of allowing you to do
things kids should be doing.
And yet,
you are making it happen. You stepped up when no one else
would.
Somebody had to.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
No comments:
Post a Comment