Summary: Today, students of the Stoneman Douglas High School, helped lead a town hall. During the town hall, students and others questioned Senators Marco Rubio, Bill Nelson, and Representative Ted Deutch about their stances on both Assault Rifles and NRA spending in relation to campaigns. The students called for action after the Florida State House failed to pass a ban on assault weapons. Rubio was specifically asked by one student, to promise that his campaign would no longer accept donations from the NRA.
Opinion: These students showed the importance of demonstrating one's beliefs. Although no solutions were addressed tonight, there was a sharing of ideas, feelings, and perceptions, all crucial to finding a final answer for gun control. This debate opened the air for national discussion and the possible steps we need to take as a country to solve this problem.
Questions:
1. Should candidates should be criticized for taking donations from organizations like the NRA, which in this case, opposes further gun control?
2. Do you believe that assault rifles should be banned? Do they serve a purpose for civilian use?
3. Are there any possible solutions to the gun control problem? Will there be a point where the heavily divided sides can come together and form a solution?
Article Link: https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/politics/cnn-town-hall-florida-shooting/index.html
3 comments:
I have so much passion for this issue, especially since I am organizing with a group of other Aragon students a march on the 24th of March addressing this exact issue. I believe it will be very difficult to actually get any further legislation or gun control regulations passed if people within the government are still receiving donations from the NRA. Therefore, I find it great that the Florida shooting survivors are directly focusing on this aspect of gun control. I do think there is a lot we can do to prevent school shootings and deaths due to guns in general (and yes, death to guns, not people- guns kill people). First, I think the government needs to improve their background checks and provide multiple mental health assessments before a person is allowed to posses a gun. Japan, for example, has an incredibly low rate of death due to gun violence and there conditions for a citizen to buy a gun are immensely secure. Some of the conditions are attending an all day class and passing a written test which must be done every 3 years of having a gun, take a mental health and drug test, and have the police inspect the gun once per year. This is just half of Japan's conditions and they had 11 deaths by guns in 2008. The U.S had 12,000. It was time for gun control to be addressed years ago, when Columbine occurred in 1999, and since then 31 school shootings have been recorded.
I know this isn't an emotional way of looking at the problem, but I don't think congressmen can rightly be criticized for taking donations from the NRA. If we were to say that their actions are wrong, we would have to say that donations from huge pharmaceutical companies, donations from massive corporations, etc. are all wrong as well. Theres a graph on Mother Jones that gives an overview of all the donations those in congress receive (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/10/congress-corporate-sponsors/) and going against the NRA contributing would sort of be a lost fight again the iron triangle. In other words, we can't say the NRA is wrong for doing what they're doing.
Of course, from a moral standpoint I believe that something should be done about this. Maybe its not trying to get NRA to not make significant contributions, but perhaps its to get congressmen to put their country first and forget such donations, instead focusing on this matter. I think that perhaps the current state of the country will allow for a stronger push in making a change.
Ariana makes a good point above in saying that if we looked down on NRA donations, we would have to have equal scrutiny towards pretty much all political money, which is not really doable, as it has become such an entrenched part of our politics. Just because the NRA continues to donate to politicians, however, does not mean that there will be no progress made to gun control.
To address the second question - yes, most people believe assault rifles should be banned and there has been legislation against them, but there is always argument in the details. I don't know if that question is really relevant to the Parkland shooting, as Cruz used an AR-15, which is not an assault rifle. So AR-15 type rifles also have to be banned? Should other complementary tools be banned? I think unfortunately, it takes a tragedy to chip away a little at our overzealous gun rights, as Trump finally wants to ban bump stocks months after the Vegas attack. Each mass shooting will have a specific detail in gun control that may have progress made, but it is hard to expect quick or drastic changes.
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