Good Democratic messaging here
The gun violence situation looks very bad in America right now. We’re averaging more than one mass shooting every day. One of the latest such shootings took place in Allen, Texas last Saturday, where a gunman wearing a tactical vest with an “RWDS” (“Right Wing Death Squad”) patch opened fire with an AR-15-style assault weapon at a shopping mall, killing at least eight people, including two young children, and injuring approximately nine others. Meanwhile, Republican-run states are going the wrong way on guns, with Florida passing a law allowing residents to carry concealed guns without a permit, and a 2015 tweet from Texas Governor Greg Abbott resurfacing again this week, in which he complains that Texas lags behind California in gun purchases, and that Texans therefore need to buy more guns. To top it off, Republican Megyn Kelly, who should know better about toxic harmful behavior, tweeted the following last Saturday:
Serious q for gun control advocates: you’ve failed to effect change. Pls face it. You can’t do it, thx to the 2A. We’re all well aware you don’t like that fact, but fact it is. What’s next? Must we just stay here sad, concerned, lamenting? Could we possibly talk OTHER SOLUTIONS?
Then, after being reprimanded for her tweet, she doubled down with the following:
No YOU F off. I am sick and tired of nothing changing after mass shootings bc we get mired EVERY TIME IN THE DAMN GUN DEBATE. You have LOST. It’s DONE. For the love of God what else can be done? You are ruining any chance at change by not admitting that the gun debate is lost.
But giving up on fighting gun violence is the last thing we should do. First of all, let’s take a lesson from the Republicans, as we suggested back in 2011, and go on offense. Specifically, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that the Constitution provides for the right to an abortion, did the anti-choice Republicans give up? Quite the opposite! They embarked on an effort lasting nearly 50 years to fight that ruling, and they made steady progress at the federal level and in various states (waiting periods, parental consent, protests, closing clinics, late-term abortion bans, etc.), until, with the right combination of Republicans in the White House and the U.S. Senate to confirm enough right-wing justices, the Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson ruling. Along the way, outlawing abortion became one of the Republicans’ chief unifying issues and rallying cries.
There is no reason why Democrats cannot adopt the same approach on gun violence, which is truly a “right to life” issue. What we need first is a Democratic President and a Democratic majority U.S. House and U.S. Senate (with a filibuster-proof super-majority of 60) to pass common sense federal gun safety legislation, such as a renewed Assault Weapons Ban and universal background checks for gun purchases. Likewise, having the White House and Senate majority (as the Democrats have now, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein has been AWOL) would mean that, when vacancies occur on any federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court, they can be filled with qualified judges nominated by the Democratic president, who is free to choose judges who he (or she) thinks is likely to rule that such gun legislation is constitutional. Indeed, these judges would have a Republican ally in the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote this important passage in his opinion in the D.C. v. Heller case recognizing an individual right to bear arms:
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.
Now, none of these positive gun safety steps will happen instantly. It could be years before there are enough good Democrats in the Senate to pass and uphold common sense legislation to fight gun violence. Likewise, with the Supreme Court is currently tilted 6-3 Republican, again it will be years before that majority can be shifted to the Democratic side. But one thing is for sure: no positive change to fight gun violence will be achieved at all if Democrats fulfill some Republicans’ wishes and simply give up.
Photo by Mike Licht, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/9JnUWB
