Wading into the right wing comments section on YouTube

The popular Assault Weapons Ban

This past week, on a YouTube channel I watch regularly, a commenter from Australia asked an unrelated question about gun violence in America, and I was off to the races. Quite an animated discussion ensued.

Interestingly, the channel is not a YouTube politics channel. Rather, it’s a special interest channel that is not officially political. Think of a channel about sneaker collecting, for example, and you’ll get the idea. However, the host is conservative. Most of his guests are conservative. And most regular commenters on the channel are likewise conservative, and they all express their views frequently, such as when talking about markets and financial issues. Normally, I don’t respond to their many right wing statements and comments. And often, I don’t tune in at all, not wanting to reward the channel with more viewership. However, as the transcript below indicates, I spontaneously waded into a fast-moving political discussion on this particular stream, and I think the exchange provides insight into two things:

The right wing talking points on gun violence
Our ability to fight back, and even drive the conversation, with good Democratic talking points. I found that mine came quite naturally, after having absorbed and participated in so many discussions for years.

I am not naming the channel in order to further minimize its viewership, as well as to maintain the commenters’ privacy. Likewise, I used each commenter’s initial (or initials) instead of their names to differentiate them below, with mine being “MM.” I bolded my comments to make them easier to identify. Finally, in order to keep the spontaneity, I did not correct the comments for spelling, punctuation, grammar, content, etc.

Here is the bulk of the conversation that took place:

L: I am in Sydney Australia. Is the violence that bad in the USA. Is everybody shooting at each other like in those Old Wild West movies.

I did not hesitate, but jumped right in and went on offense:

MM: Unfortunately yes. Republicans won’t vote for sensible gun safety steps that almost everyone wants, like universal background checks.

M3: Mass shootings damn near every day. Stay away!

P: More guns than people in the US. It’s terrifying!

MM: yes

R: I’m dodging bullets all the time, mostly from Trump supporters with AR-15s

Note that a couple of the right wing commenters try to use mockery. I don’t think it worked very well.

I: Take away the guns take away your freedom

R: I only feel safe in diverse neighborhoods with common sense gun laws

I: Ban all trucks too in Europe and the USA too when they run over people

M3: Im not for the guns being taken away its a social problem and it starts with the broken family her in america

Are you spotting the usual Republican talking points? However, it appears that I may have one ally:

B: found the Trumpster in the chat

I: agree @m3

F: I Feel Safe Aroung Right Wing Constitutionlists Who Will Protect Me From Deranged Pilled Up Lefties

M3: The family in america is broken and its never gonna be a insta fix, generation of fixing ahead if they choose to try

MM: Trucks aren’t designed to run over people; spurious argument. But look at all the requirements to drive a truck …

AK: it’s all in the data. all the big cities have the strictest gun laws and are the safest

And if you had “Chicago” on your right wing Bingo card ….

F: @AK So Downtown Chicago Is Safer Than Some Backcountry Town??

Note that the comments can come fast and furious, so a lone commenter like me often has trouble keeping up with responses. This is a continuation of the truck analogy:

MM: … special license, training, insurance for starters… cars have to have safety equipment …

P: Did you see them floating a 1000% excise tax on scary black guns today R?

C: @A lol you absolutely haven’t been in slot of eastern American cities at dark

AK: obviously it’s BS

AK: gun laws dont work

Great, now the right wingers are advocating anarchy. But curiously, here’s the first concession from one of them:

R: No I didn’t. Although P, I hate to admit this, but I agree with them on increasing the age of semiauto purchase to 21. Brain development, profile of school shooters, etc.

And my continuing car regulation analogy, which I think is a really good one whenever the other side trots out the “we don’t ban cars” argument:

MM: … bumpers, seat belts, safety glass, center rear brake light, rear backup camera, side impact protection, …

AK: I’m in Chicago and it’s hell here.

C: Did the Clinton ban cut down on crime??

Again, I didn’t get to answer that one, but the answer is, yes, the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban signed by President Bill Clinton, which lasted until 2004, did reduce mass shooting incidents and deaths.

And someone agrees with R’s concession about raising the minimum age for purchasing a semi-automatic weapon to 21:

P: Yeah I don’t really mind that one either R

AE: @AK yeah I’m done with gun laws. Politicians can write whatever they feel like.

So much for the Republicans’ “rule of law” or “law and order” talking points.

AK: same as declaring a shark free zone and expecting no sharks

Straw Man Alert! Who knew that people are just like sharks, and cannot be expected to follow laws, or that they can’t be subjected to enforcement of laws?

I: omg how do people live in Chicago? all Demorat cities have the strictest gun laws and the most gun violence….

C: They won’t take my guns alive

Another Straw Man, as the legislative proposals are prospective, rather than taking away guns or rifles that were lawful when purchased.

Finally, I get to finish my car analogy, in this case applying it to Assault Weapons:

MM: … and some high-performance vehicles like F1 cars and dragsters can’t be driven by general public on public roads

AK: stuck here [Chicago] because family. would love to move to Florida or Tx

MM: R the 21 age requirement seems like something that a lot of people can agree on

C: I’m in phx you don’t dare approach someone in an aggressive manor here you’ll have a hole in you but I like it like that

R: Also, these mass school shootings almost never occur in the hood. Gang shootings yes, but not mass slaughter. We should ask ourselves why and replicate the solution.

Yes, how about we examine violent right wing white supremacist rhetoric, for example?

AE: @MM if you can fight for your country at 18, you should be able to drink and buy guns

I did not get to mention that, before handling weapons in the U.S. military, our troops get extensive training, directly from the government.

AK: inner cities all have heavy police present in the schools and metal detectors

Gee, so enforcing the law, including prevention, works after all.

H: School shootings don’t happen in the hood because no one is in school in the hood. They are in the neighborhoods smoking weed and doing drive by’s.

MM: 21 to drink, 25 to rent a car. Someone thinks 18 year olds aren’t yet fully responsible

R: The response to the Uvalde shooting by police was ipso facto evidence for the necessity of gun ownership

AE: As a statistical matter, kids don’t die in school shootings. More kids die suffocating in their bed sheets. But we still should do something, allow the teachers to be armed. done. problem solved

AK: @messagingmatters criminals will always be getting guns

C: 18 is far from mature these days

MM: C, R and I agree

Here comes another Straw Man:

I: that shooting was extremely sad but 100x more die in abortion everyday but that’s ok for demorats

And here’s evidence that other countries are not the same as America regarding guns:

AS: Got rid of guns in Australia. Nobody really cared.

The conservative now adds to his concession that I helped to highlight:

R: 21 and up for semiautos. That’s an extremely reasonable intervention and it would have prevented both of the recent big shootings, or at least made them more difficult to commit.

But here’s a misogynistic tell:

N: I work in education and trust me I wouldn’t want to arm any of the young ladies I know that teach. I’d rather arm the 11 year old kids.

Here I respond to the earlier “criminals will always be getting guns” talking point:

MM: Criminals will always get heroin, will always rob & rape & kidnap. Guess that should be all legal too. 🤦‍♂

D: Guns are banned in most countries. Not without reasons.

C: Cartels would love if we banned guns

Again with the Straw Man, as even an Assault Weapons Ban would only affect a tiny percentage of guns sold.

D: we should just arm the kids

Another concession from conservative “R”:

R: AR-15s are not “sporting rifles”, they ARE weapons of war and that’s exactly the point

Now I get to mock the other side’s talking points:

MM: Just read a 2 year old got hold of family gun and killed father. Mother being charged with manslaughter. Where was a good 2 year old with a gun when we needed one?

AS: I would have thought America would wake up after that Vegas shooter. Jesus. That was bad guys.

Again, I’m on offense, not defense:

MM: Some of the same people who don’t trust teachers to teach want to arm them against AR-15 mass shooters. That is laughable, man.

MM: But I need an AR-15 to shoot prairie dogs. Republican U.S. Senator John Thune just said that.

Remember what worked so well for liberal talk show host Mike Signorile was what I called “first the facts, then attack.”

R: What I find interesting is that the same group of people that hate the second amendment also believe we elected a literal “fascist” with the orange guy

… prompting me to quote Heller:

MM: I’m not aware of anyone who hates 2A. Check out Scalia opinion in Heller. He wrote that 2A “is not unlimited” and could include eg “concealed weapons prohibitions” …

MM: … prohibitions on “possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill” …

MM: “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings” …

MM: decision did not overturn “tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.” That means e.g. assault weapons

You’ve probably read enough by now. My biggest takeaway from this discussion is that I had arguments and responses memorized that I could deploy in live time. That’s after lots of practice and exposure to them. However, it’s clear that Fox “News” and other right wing media outlets have done their jobs. Just look at the mentions here of “Chicago,” for example, and other racist tropes. But note that some on the other side volunteered a concession: raising the age of purchasing semi-automatic weapons to 21. In such cases, maybe we should grab that low-hanging fruit and pass stand-alone legislation.

Now, was it worth it to have this discussion? Did I change any minds? Of the hard-core Republicans in the audience, I’m sure the answer is no. However, perhaps a few people who are somewhere in the middle were given pause to think. And maybe some Democrats in the audience got a few pointers along the way. But note, this sort of exercise can be draining.

Photo by Peter Stevens, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/7B7osx