Andrew Lepore | United States

CNN: Why 70% support isn’t enough to change gun laws – 71 Republic Response

The most polarizing issue in the American political arena today is gun control. Both sides seem firmly in opposition as to what we should do about gun violence in America. While most of us on the Libertarian right believe that firearms regulations are unconstitutional (and immoral), some of the opposition wish to use whatever conceivable means to push America down the path of disarmament. Though most Americans hold a position somewhere in between the extremes, that doesn’t stop the left from exaggerating public support of “gun control” and using it to justify more big government. In this article I will be responding to the points in a CNN analysis posted February 28th 2018 by Gregory Krieg and Sam Patella titled “Why 70% support isn’t enough to change gun laws”.

In this analysis, the authors are trying to paint for the reader a picture of the gun control debate in America. The analysis opens with the following;

“A series of competing bills and amendments are currently sitting in limbo on Capitol Hill as lawmakers, most of them Republicans, refuse to consider — much less vote for — any meaningful new legislation.

Outside of Washington, however, there is a wide and growing consensus that some kind of reform is necessary — and has been for some time. Recent CNN polling shows a strong majority of Americans (70%) support generally stricter gun laws. When it comes to more specific measures, the numbers tick up further.

But history tells us that popular support will only take a controversial cause so far. Driving action in Congress requires an assortment of preconditions, from the obvious — electing officials who support a given policy — to the less easily defined — electing officials who will actually work to deliver it. To put both in place, voters and activists need to grow coalitions, keep their issues in the headlines and solidify a hardline base of support.”

Right off the bat, CNN is attempting to frame “gun control” as widely supported by the masses citing their own poll as evidence for this claim. I wouldn’t say CNN’s far left base is the best demographic for an unbiased poll on the average person’s opinion on the matter.

In the following paragraphs, the authors blame the NRA for the split between the voters and their elected officials,

“ But there is a larger question here that needs answering. It asks why, in such a divided country, that a political goal enjoying such broad backing can’t get a hearing in the halls of power?

The typical explanation, one frequently used by politicians and elected officials, is to blame the outsize influence of rich interest groups. When it comes to gun control, the National Rifle Association is the name that comes up the most.

This makes sense, though not to the extent some would have you believe. The NRA is powerful, for sure, but not only because of its spending. The organization also says it has 5 million dues-paying members. For many among the rank-and-file, turning back efforts to tighten gun laws is their top, perhaps only, political priority. And that, more than few thousand dollars in campaign bucks, is what makes the NRA so powerful.”

CNN is trying to paint this picture that some mass consensus has emerged out of the last shooting in Florida. That this recent tragedy was the straw that broke the camel’s back. That the average American has finally “woken up” to the big issue, and a non-partisan grassroots movement of the 99% is mobilizing to demand populist reform from Washington. But the only things coming in the way of change and an end of mass shootings forever are puppet politicians and their NRA overlords, greedily refusing to allow democracy to unfold in the name of profits or something.

This is obviously absurd, as we know, the second amendment is and always has been a losing issue for Democrats.The second amendment and even the NRA enjoy large support across the country. Not to mention talk of the NRA taking advantage of our democratic system and bribing politicians is quite hypocritical coming from a party propped up by Planned Parenthood donations. The Democratic party and its candidates have received 10s of millions of dollars in the last few elections cycles. The GOP is no better when it comes to money in politics, but Considering PP received a whopping $528 million in taxpayer dollars from the federal government, I would say PP donations have affected our “democracy”” just a little bit more than the NRA.

Even suggesting the idea that the NRA is a threat to “the Democratic system” yet ignoring Planned parenthood as a lobbying entity is pathetically dishonest and laughable. Just look at the goals of the contrasting organizations: these goals represent the difference between “positive” and “negative” rights. Both organizations believe you have a “right’ to something. For the NRA it’s the right to bear arms, which is a “negative right” in that its purpose is to prevent the state from interfering with your right to bear arms. Planned Parenthood believes it has a right to have taxpayer-funded abortions, which would be a “positive right” meaning it requires somebody to provide you with a good or service at their expense. Planned parenthood is literally lobbying the state to steal more money from you to pay for irresponsible mothers to terminate their offspring. The NRA is simply lobbying for the state to not interfere with our life in this aspect. What do you think is going to “interfere with our democracy” more? CNN definitely isn’t telling you in this article.

Anyway, this brings me to my last point, which is challenging the very idea of this article. This article is insinuating the premise that because they tell us there is a majority in favor of gun control (which we could never really know the numbers), we should automatically be in favor of imposing the will of the majority on the minority. They think that by tossing out a number larger than 50% we should just throw our rights out the window. It’s truly sad that people base the morality and effectiveness of a law by the amount of people support it. I don’t know about you, but I learned from history that the mob majority just may not be the best way to judge if a law is moral (slavery, the holocaust). If the title of this article was honest, it would read “Why isn’t 70% support enough to forcefully dictate how the other 30% protects their life, liberty, and property?” But you know Gregory Krieg and Sam Patella still have the moral high ground because their against the NRA and stuff.

CNN is immediately asserting 70% of Americans support the vague notion of “gun control”, citing a highly unreliable poll as the source. The assertion that the populist sentiment is to vastly strengthen gun control, but the only thing holding us back from reform are the even puppet masters of the NRA. Because they’re telling us supposedly a majority of people support gun control, that the majority has some right to use coercion of the mob to dictate what policies the minority lives under. As we know, there is no smaller minority than the individual, and the justification of the individual to live the way he chooses outweighs any consensus of a democratic majority