Re. Assault Rifles — Let’s Cut the BS and Get to Work.
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Here’s what’s going to happen. The Democrats will introduce a bill to ban assault rifles or at least make the purchase of an assault rifle a little more difficult than it is now.
The Republicans will huff and puff about gun ‘rights,’ but what they really will do to kill the bill is to stall.
Because one of the things that Gun-nut Nation knows is that the hue and cry about a mass shooting usually lasts about one week. And if you don’t believe me, just go to one of those websites which gives you daily hits for a term like ‘gun violence,’ or ‘shootings,’ or some other phrase that people would use after a massacre at an elementary school and see what you see.
What you’ll see, because I did it after Sandy Hook and again after Las Vegas, is that there will be a spike in internet searches for about one week. And then the search rate for anything having to do with gun violence goes back down to somewhere around zilch.
And all the men and women whose political careers are on the line come November know this a lot better than you or I know. So, a few more thoughts and prayers and then go into the usual drill.
The picture I took above is in a small town in northern Massachusetts which used to have a bunch of red-brick factories that are now all empty and unused. The store with those signs in the windows sits directly across the street from not one, but two shops that sell guns.
So, if the owner of this shop in the crummy, little town of Turner’s Falls can express himself very clearly and openly about what happened at Robb Elementary School last Tuesday, isn’t it time that we followed his lead and get involved?
And I’m not talking about showing up at a candlelight vigil, or going on a remembrance march, or putting down some flowers in front of the school. That’s all fine and well.
What we need this time is a strong, ongoing series of actions that will make it difficult for the GOP to slip into their usual big stall.
Here’s what I’m going to do this coming week:
· I’m going to go to a website where I can design my own lawn sign which will read ‘Ban Assault Rifles — Now.’ I’ll order 25 signs and when they are…