On Saturday, March 24, hundreds of thousands of young people assembled in the streets of cities around the United States to protest the absurdly lax gun laws in America. These young people have the good sense to understand that serious national gun regulation is desperately needed, if we are going to reduce the tragically high number of deaths that result from guns. Their intelligent speeches garnered high praise from left leaning pundits and from many right leaning ones as well. But some on the right, those on the right who fear the inevitable changes that are coming to this country, belittled the young protesters with typical NRA pseudo-patriotic rhetoric and condescending smugness.
To defend their right to own any weapon they choose, the NRA posted derisive videos on Facebook that described the March For Our Lives protests as a product of the master plan by the liberal and evil elites headquartered in Hollywood: “Today’s protests aren’t spontaneous. Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children as part of their plan to DESTROY the Second Amendment and strip us of our right to defend ourselves and our loved ones.”
The first part of that sentence parrots the typical “talking points memo” one hears on right wing radio programs. Read: lefty billionaire types (Michael Bloomberg), Hollywood elite, (George Clooney,etc) are determined to endanger freedom loving Americans. The second half of the sentence is even more amusing. Its pretentiousness is perfect for a Hollywood script that could feature John Wayne and Charlton Heston. Maybe like Carrie Fisher, the old duke and Heston could be technologically reanimated to star in a new xenophobic film in which they save America from the threat to “our way of life” the kids from Parkland pose. The best response to the NRA’s attempt to stir up a paranoid frenzy came from Delaney Tarr, who acutely identified the NRA’s objective in issuing such rhetoric: “This is a movement reliant on the persistence and passion of its people...We cannot move on. If we move on, the NRA and those against us will win. They want us to forget. They want our voices to be silenced. And they want to retreat into the shadows where they can remain unnoticed. They want to be back on top, unquestioned in their corruption, but we cannot and we will not let that happen.”
Another right wing bully, Matt Verspa of Townhall sneered “This is not just a fight over the Second...after they’re done with Second Amendment, the great progressive campaign to shred the constitution of its institutional mechanisms that prevent mob rule through transient majorities will begin.” I wonder what Verspa means by “transient majorities”? Does he fear the shifting demographics of America? Are his words a coded racist message to like minded older, white males? Inexorable as the tides, the population of white men have been is receding just as the population of people of color have been rising. As one saw the faces of the March for Our Lives rally, one saw the diversity of color that will shape politics in the near future.
These individuals and the NRA are bullies and since they see that the times are moving against them and will slowly overwhelm them, it is obvious that their politics are driven by a genuine fear that “their way of life” is slipping away. Of course, like most people motivated by fear, the dangers they see surrounding them are more fantasy than reality. By the time this country enacts intelligent laws, Wayne Lapierre and many of the men who fetishistically cling to their guns will be dead and buried. Some of course will be with us longer and will continue to argue that guns aren’t the problem. One of the weirdest commentaries on the Parkland shooting from one such person came from former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum on CNN:
SANTORUM: “Yes. I mean, this is the bottom line.
Is this a political effort? Is this a political movement? It very well may be, and that's fine.
I mean, if the organizers, people certainly supported it, the Hollywood elites and the liberal billionaires who funded this, is all about politics.
Is this really all about politics or is it all about keeping our schools safe? Because it is about keeping our schools safe then we have to have much broader discussion than the discussion that's going on right now. How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that if there is violence.”
The sheer magnitude of Santorum’s stupidity here is outdone by his response to another commentator who reminded him that these kids are taking action by protesting:
SANTORUM: Yes, they took action to ask someone to pass a law.
They didn't take action say, how do I as an individual deal with this problem? How am I going to do something about stopping bullying within my own community? What am I going to do to actually help respond to an issue? What am I going to do?
Those are the kinds of things where you can take it in internally and say, here's how I'm going to deal with this, here's how I'm going to help the situation instead of going and protesting and saying, oh, someone else needs to pass a law to protect me.”
His smug platitudes don’t disguise what he really wants. He wants the students to be silent. He wants the students to leave the matter of politics and policy about guns in the smooth, soft hands of the politicians who sputtered inanities about “thoughts and prayers” every time these mass shooting happen, then return to their offices to open the envelopes out of which flutter the checks the NRA has generously sent them. But as Delaney Tarr said, their “voices” won’t “be silenced.” Let’s hope she’s right and let’s keep fighting with her and the rest of those kids who are young enough to be far wiser than their elders and who very soon will transform their words into ballots more persuasive than all those NRA payoffs to members of congress.
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