If you haven't been living under a rock, by now you're well-aware of the school mass shooting in Parkland, Florida last week. For the most part it has played out much as previous mass shootings have. There's a very clear script that the USA follows:
- Shooting happens.
- Reporters interview survivors and say how horrible it is.
- Politicians and pundits on the Right send Thoughts and Prayers(tm), and otherwise do nothing.
- Politicians and pundits on the Left demand various legal restrictions on guns, gun type, gun access, or, well, pretty much anything.
- Politicians on the Right insist it's impolite to talk about actually doing something proactive while we're still "counting bodies".
- Activists on the Right muddy the waters by talking about all the other cause of gun violence, blaming "mental illness" (as though that exists in a vacuum), talk about self-defense, etc. None of which have anything to do with the issue at hand.
- Activists on the Left rail against those on the Right for being power-mad gun nuts. Activists on the Right rail against those on the Left for wanting to take away every gun in the country. (The truth of either of those claims being entirely irrelevant.)
- Activists on the Right suggest the answer to gun violence is more gun violence: More concealed carry, armed guards in schools, armed teachers.
- Activists on the Left facepalm at just how impressively brain-dead that argument is and how everyone on the Right is stupid.
- The Onion points out how mind-bogglingly stupid it is that we pretend we can't address the problem, when no other industrial nation on earth has this problem.
- Something happens in Hollywood and we pay attention to that instead.
- Another shooting happens.
And of course everyone plays by The Rules.
We as a country decided long ago that we're OK with dozens of mass shootings every year. Many pundits list the Sandyhook shooting (2012) as the point we simply gave up and accepted routine mass murder as a normal part of our culture, but I put it even earlier than that. I'd argue that when Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in 2011 and her colleagues in Congress still did nothing is when we gave up caring that we as a society are slowly rotting from the inside out.
We'd rather yell at each other and do nothing than call out Bullshit and practice Civility. Because that's America in the 21st century.
This time it's different?
We always say it will be, but it never is. Maybe this time it will be enough, maybe this time our citizens will get off their asses and do something, maybe this time Congress will do more than send Thoughts and Prayers(tm). And then there's another one. And another.
Well... maybe this time there's a chance. Because this time, the students themselves are standing and saying "fuck this shit!" The American government has made it clear it's not going to protect its people. American citizens have made it clear they're not going to do anything about the problem. So maybe under-age children who aren't even citizens yet can finally make a dent. Maybe.
(If you haven't seen the various videos of the students, 16 and 17 year olds, speaking out, you really need to. They're more articulate than most of Congress, although that is admittedly not a high bar.)
Why do I have even a glimmer of hope this time? Because the students have been placing the blame exactly where it truly belongs:
"...this is about us creating a badge of shame for any politicians accepting money from the NRA and using us as collateral." --Cameron Kasky, Junior, Stoneman Douglas High School
The villain
Why does nothing ever happen? Why can't we even discuss gun safety measures? Why don't we pass even basic laws that have broad bipartisan support across the country?
Because of the National Rifle Association.
Why is the Center for Disease Control effectively banned from even researching gun violence? Because of the National Rifle Association.
The last independent study (meaning, not funded by the NRA) found that, lo and behold, people with a gun in the home are at 2.7 times greater risk of homicide and 4.8 times greater risk of suicide. But that was in 1993, and so the NRA made it effectively illegal for the CDC or anyone who gets any federal money to continue studying gun violence.
97% of the country supports mandatory background checks on all gun purchases. Why don't we have it? Because of the National Rifle Association.
89% of Americans, of both parties, support banning those with mental illness from buying a gun. Yet the Republican-controlled Congress and President Trump just voted last year to revoke a law that did so. Why did they do that? Because of the National Rifle Association.
No, trigger locks won't help with mass shootings, but they'll help with suicide and accidental discharge. No, background checks won't help with suicide, but they'll help with mass shootings. There's no one solution, but there's lots of things we could do that would help, all of which fall far short of total weapons bans.
Yet why does every public discussion of gun control or gun safety still devolve into "you want to take my guns!" Because of the National Rifle Association.
The motive
Why does the NRA get in the way of policies even its own members support? Money. Plain and simple.
The NRA used to be a sportsman's organization, running training camps and organizing parties and so on. Think like AAA but for guns instead of cars. Today, however, most of its funding comes from gun manufacturers. Companies that make firearms.
From arms dealers. (Oh wait, we only call them arms dealers when they're not Americans, sorry.)
Even most legal gun owners say that the NRA represents arms dealers, not them.
So what's the real script to gun violence in America?
- There's a shooting.
- There's cries that we need to do something, anything, to address gun violence.
- The NRA and its proxies spin that as "They're going to take your guns! They're going to make them illegal! Quick, stock up while you still can!" (That no Left-leaning politician actually calls for a complete confiscation of all guns is irrelevant.)
- Gun owners and those who may have been considering a gun go out and buy guns en masse.
- The arms dealers make a ton of money and their stock price goes up.
- Lather, rinse, repeat.
Amusingly, it seems this pattern has broken down with Republican control of Washington all but solidified in the last year. Gun stockpilers aren't worried that a Republican Congress will "take away their guns", so arms dealers are not getting the same sales boost. (Also of note in that article: "A study by professors at Harvard and Northeastern University in 2016 found that half of the guns in the nation are owned by only 3% of the population." But they're propping up the arms dealers quite nicely.)
We also get the NRA's Wayne La Pierre on TV declaring that "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," despite the fundamental stupidity of "the way to reduce violence is to encourage more violence". But that's OK, logic isn't the point. The point is to make people think that "if only I had a gun, I could be a hero. I could be a man!" The arms dealers don't even beat around the bush on that point. Bushmaster (one particular arms dealer) has advertisements out saying very clearly that if you buy their guns, "consider your man card reissued."
They're literally saying that your status as a man is based on buying military arms. That's not an exaggeration. That's a quote.
The means
So how does the NRA achieve this feat? How does it ensure that we never even discuss widely-supported moderate, even mediocre steps to address gun violence of any kind?
Simple: It bribes Congress.
Well, it bribes mostly Republicans but that's enough. It's actually better because that way there's a clear "us" and "them" to fight it out and ensure nothing gets done, and ensure the conversation is toxic to even start. Even when there's clear, widespread agreement on incremental steps we can't even take those, because the NRA is too busy bribing politicians to call for more guns as the answer to too many guns. (The latest is arming teachers, who have universally responded with "hell no, get that thing away from me!")
I say "bribe" but it's technically legal. Political campaigns are costly, and in the US they're almost entirely privately funded. Candidates are on their own to pay for staff, TV ads, mailings, donuts, and the many other things a campaign needs. That puts candidates, regardless of party, in the position of being beggars: They have to go around begging for donations in order to even get their message out, whatever it is. And of course it's far more efficient to spend your time begging from rich people who can donate a lot of money at once, or from large lobbying organizations that can do the same.
Large lobbying organizations like the National Rifle Association.
That is the dynamic that blocks serious discussion of gun reform (whether you want to call it "control" or "safety" or "rights" or whatever the buzzword is), as well as pretty much any other topic you can think of. Candidates are at an automatic and massive disadvantage if they don't accept donations and 3rd party support from lobbying organizations; usually they can't even get their message out enough for people to know who they are and decide if they hate them or not.
Support the arms dealers' "moar guns!" position? Great, the NRA will fund your campaign. Vote against it? Too bad, they'll fund your primary challenger's campaign. That ensures only extremist positions are heard, keeps the fight going, and drives up profits year after year.
That's why we can't take even basic steps, ones most gun owners do support. That's why people keep dying. That's why children keep dying.
The treatment
The solution, or at least a major part of it, is not to publicly shame the NRA. It's not to encourage companies to end partnerships with the NRA. It's not to put a "badge of shame" on those who accept money from the NRA. Those are all good things, and I support them, but none of them solve the root issue. Without addressing the root issue the arms dealers will simply find a new way to channel money to candidates and financially bully those who don't tow the line. Just as they've been doing for decades.
The solution is to do away with privately financed elections. Free and fair elections are in the public interest, and require public funding. We need candidates who want to avoid being bought by lobbyists like the NRA to be heard and have a shot at running. That means giving them a public means of broad-based funding that isn't based on spending 90% of their campaign time begging for money $10 at a time.
That can be done in an entirely fair and constitutional way. Various mechanisms have been proposed and legally vetted, and are being tested at state and city levels to great success. We need to take those programs national in a big way, every state, every election. Various organizations are working on that
The most common proposal involves dollar matching; candidates who commit to only take small dollar donations from voters get donations multiplier-matched by the state: 6-to-1 or 7-to-1 or something like that. That makes someone's $20 donation worth the time to talk to individual voters, not just lobbyists. Candidates who get more donations still end up with more in their campaign budget at the end of the day, but fairly and equitably amplified. It means candidates willing to look at the problem seriously, not just with talking points fed to them by NRA lobbyists, can actually get their message out. And if you add it up, it's not actually that expensive compared to most state and federal budgets.
Not a silver bullet
(Pun intended.) That's not the only way that the arms dealers prevent the discussion from happening, to be sure. There's much more that needs to be done to fix the system that allows them to smother reasonable discussion. Nor am I arguing for "Take all the guns!" For better or worse that ship has sailed. But unless we are able to take reasoned, measured steps to curb gun violence we're going to end up with "moar guns!" and "no guns!" as the only voices even heard, while people keep dying.
Of course, there is opposition to public campaign funding. The most common objection I hear is some form of "I don't want my tax dollars supporting the other guy". And I get that. Really. The idea of my tax dollars going to help Donald Trump makes my stomach turn, just as I'm sure many are nauseous at the idea of their tax dollars supporting Hillary Clinton.
But you're not supporting Trump or Clinton. You're supporting the system. Your tax dollars would be supporting a system that lets us get better, more independent, less corrupt candidates than either Trump or Clinton (the two least popular presidential candidates in modern history). It's your tax dollars paying for giving actual grassroots candidates, moderates who are not bought and paid for by corporations or unions or Charles Koch or George Soros or the NRA or whatever evil boogeyman you dislike, an opportunity reach out and run for you, rather than against you. You're funding America.
Because right now, the status quo is killing us. Literally. America is dying. Americans are dying. There are steps we could take that would at the very least help, that have widespread support, even among gun owners. But we can't, because the arms dealers, through the NRA, own the government. All the boycotts and protests and marches and brave teens taking Senators to task on national TV will only be temporary reprieve if we don't fix the root problem.
At this point in time, while I normally hate binary arguments, I don't think it's avoidable:
You either support full public campaign financing or you support children being shot in their classrooms.
You want to save the children? Save our government from the arms dealers first.