Right wing New York Post now calls for Assault Weapons Ban
In the wake of last weekend’s back-to-back deadly mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, the arguments are flying from pro-gun right wingers who don’t want to take any action to reduce gun violence, and many Democrats (joined by others) who say that America needs common-sense gun laws. The right wing talking points have been around for years, and typically emanate from the top, meaning the National Rifle Association (NRA), which is now reduced to a pro-terrorist gun manufacturers’ trade group, as well as Republican Party professional phrase makers. So now, let’s go through some of these Republican pro-gun violence talking points, and come up with good, short responses to them. In some cases, responses have been given in recent days, and are cited here:
1. “It’s too soon to talk about doing something on gun violence.”
We hear this after every mass shooting. The obvious, and perhaps deliberate, fallacy behind this right wing talking point is that, with mass shootings occurring so frequently in the United States (an average of more than one per day in 2019), it would always be “too soon to talk about” reducing gun violence.
Response: “The Columbine High School massacre took place more than 20 years ago. Is it still too soon to talk about it?”
2. “The problem is mental health, not guns.”
Response 1:
Every country has mentally ill. Every country has video games. Every country has people who don’t pray. Every country has racists. Only America has near-daily mass shootings. It’s the guns https://t.co/qNEdXv8bto
— David Frum (@davidfrum) August 4, 2019
Response 2:
I have a super good idea for the President and every Republican who have become interested today in making our mental system better.
wait for it…wait for it…
STOP YOUR LAWSUIT TO OVERTURN THE ACA, ENDING MENTAL HEALTH COVERAGE FOR 20M PEOPLE!
That would be a nice start.
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) August 5, 2019
Response 3:
Shortly after taking office, President Trump quietly rolled back an Obama-era regulation that would have made it harder for people with mental illness to buy guns. https://t.co/mNYK7qDQlI
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 5, 2019
3. “We need more thoughts and prayers.”
From Messaging Matters on Twitter two days ago:
Response: “If ‘thoughts and prayers’ alone were enough to do anything, gun violence in America would have been reduced to zero years ago.”
4. “All we need is ‘a good guy with a gun’ to stop a bad guy with a gun.”
Response:
https://twitter.com/MessagingMatt/status/1158021830445342723
5. “Racists, white supremacists and Donald Trump didn’t cause or increase the number of mass shootings.”
Response:
You cannot leave it up to me. Members of the press: You too have to call him out for being the most racist president since Andrew Johnson. pic.twitter.com/bsrrth4p0K
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) August 6, 2019
6. “Banning assault weapons and having universal background checks wouldn’t stop crazy people or criminals from getting and using guns.”
Response:
How many more people have to die before we reinstate the assault weapons ban & the limit on high-capacity magazines & pass universal background checks? After they passed in 1994, there was a big drop in mass shooting deaths. When the ban expired, they rose again. We must act now.
— Bill Clinton (@BillClinton) August 5, 2019
7. “Cars cause as many deaths as guns. Why don’t we just ban cars?”
We answered this one last night:
Response:
https://twitter.com/MessagingMatt/status/1158595995455885317
Every time there is a tragic mass shooting, rational Americans believe that, maybe this time, something will get done to prevent such further tragedies. If enough people push for such changes, and respond to the usual right wing talking points effectively, perhaps we can move closer to this goal.
Photo by Peter Stevens, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/f6EeOo
