Guns

Gun Debate A Narrow Opportunity For Democrats, A Wide One For The Left

March 30, 2018 Bruce A. Dixon, Blackagendareport.com Educate! Democratic Party, Electoral Politics, Guns, Left Politics

Last weekend the March For Our Lives mobilized half a million on the DC mall and a few hundred thousand more combined in dozens of cities across the US. Lyft donated a million free rides to marchers, and a long list of celebrity endorsers wrote checks and cut spots. Broadcast and cable media gave free plugs letting people know where local actions were, and how to donate online. Former president Obama, who scorned the young people in the streets after the police murder of Freddie Gray warmly praised the young protesters against gun violence in Florida as ‘leading the way for all of us.” It’s not hard to see the hand of the Democratic party behind the tens of millions in corporate contributions and free media accorded the March For Our Lives mobilization. 2018 is a midterm election year, and November is only seven months away.

March For Our Lives Awakens Spirit Of Student And Media Activism Of 1960s

March 30, 2018 By Errol Salamon, Theconversation.com Educate! Activism, Guns, Media, Youth Activism

Student journalists used media as a key tool for activism in the widespread social movements of the 1960s, journalism scholar Kaylene Dial Armstrong writes in her book “How Journalists Report Campus Unrest.” One notable student protest happened in Washington, D.C., 50 years ago. In the spring of 1968, student demonstrators occupied the administration building at Howard University, a historically black school in Washington to protest racial inequality. Starting on March 19, more than 1,000 students shut down administrative operations at the university until March 23. One of the lead organizers, Adrienne Manns, was the editor-in-chief of Howard’s student newspaper, The Hilltop. The Hilltop supported the protesters from the outset. “It is the responsibility of The Hilltop to present issues and suggest solutions,” read a front-page editorial on March 8, 1968, in the lead-up to the occupation.

Students, Youth Speak About War, Inequality At DC March For Our Lives Rally

March 28, 2018 Tom Hall, Wsws.org Educate! Guns, Inequality, March, Students, Wars and Militarism, Washington DC, Youth

An estimated 800,000 people descended on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC for the national March for Our Lives rally on Saturday. The turnout for the DC march, the largest of 800 demonstrations throughout the US and internationally, exceeded organizers’ expectations of half a million demonstrators. Some media outlets are saying that the rally was the largest in the history of the American capital. (See, “Hundreds of thousands of students march against mass violence in America ”) High school students and other youth who attended the rally had far more on their minds than gun control and the midterm elections—the issues promoted by the media and the Democratic Party. Many sought to connect the epidemic of mass shootings in American schools to broader issues, from the promotion of militarism and war, to poverty and social inequality.

Shut Down Firing Ranges in US High Schools

March 28, 2018 Pat Elder, Popular Resistance Create! Guns, JROTC, Youth

The Army taught Florida gunman Nikolas Cruz how to shoot a lethal weapon in his high school cafeteria when he was 14. Nik was a member of the school’s U.S. Army JROTC Marksmanship Program. JROTC stands for the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Nearly 2,000 high schools have military shooting programs. They should be shut down. The marksmanship programs typically use CO2-powered long rifles that shoot .177 caliber lead pellets at speeds up to 600 feet per second. They are lethal weapons. America is the only country in the world that teaches riflery in its public schools. Militarism is a contributing cause of gun violence in America. These shooting programs don’t belong in schools!

Badass Breakfast Club Turns Detention Into Yet Another Gun Reform Protest

March 21, 2018 By AbZimet, Commondreams.org Resist! Guns, Protests, Youth Activism

Lookit These Kids Redux: Over 200 students at Pennsylvania's Pennridge High who defied their school's ban on joining last week's nationwide walkout have transformed their ostensible punishment into Civil Disobedience 101 by turning their detention into a silent, moving sit-in. Days before the planned walkout, school officials had announced a Remembrance Assembly featuring a 17-minute silence and slide show to honor the Parkland victims; citing "safety concerns," the school board also said any students who joined the walkout would "face consequences.” Somewhat defensively, the Superintendent clarified that students would be disciplined, not because "they expressed any particular viewpoint or opinion," but for "willfully breaking a school rule about leaving the building without permission."

Nation Trying To Figure Out Gun Violence To Hold Military Parade Glorifying War

March 16, 2018 By Carey Wedler, Steemit.com Educate! Guns, Militarism and War, Nationalism, Trump Administration, Violence

Every time a mass shooting rocks the United States, Americans demand their government do something. Whether it’s confiscating guns, arming teachers, or turning schools into prisons, neither politicians or the public can agree upon a solution to the ongoing violence, but they know their government should act. With last month’s Valentine’s Day shooting in Parkland, Florida, most Americans are consumed with outrage targeted at guns, and conversely, those who want to ban guns. They have largely forgotten about the massive celebration of gun violence — and worse — that their president is planning one in the capital city for later this year. Last week, the budget details of President Trump’s proposed military parade revealed a cost of between $10 million and $30 million.

Today Is The National School Walkout To End Gun Violence. Read Live Updates Here.

March 14, 2018 Hayley Miller, Huffingtonpost.com Resist! Guns, Protests, Violence, Youth Activism

Students nationwide are walking out of their schools on Wednesday to protest gun violence on the one-month anniversary of the Parkland massacre. Thousands of students are expected to file out of their classrooms to join the National School Walkout, a massive protest organized by Youth EMPOWER, a branch of young activists affiliated with the Women’s March. The group asked students and faculty to walk off campus at 10 a.m. in every time zone for 17 minutes. Each minute represents one of the 17 people killed in the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. “Congress must take meaningful action to keep us safe and pass federal gun reform legislation that addresses this public health crisis,” organizers of the walkout wrote on their website.

Empty Shoes, Empty Schools: U.S. Gun Law Activists Begin Two Days Of Theater

March 14, 2018 Ian Simpson, Reuters.com Resist! Activists, Guns, Youth

Mauser was one of a handful of gun control activists and volunteers who braved a frigid March morning to lay out about 7,000 pairs of shoes on the U.S. Capitol lawn as a makeshift memorial to American children killed by gun violence. Their aim, like the thousands of students across the country who plan to walk out of their classrooms for 17 minutes on Wednesday morning, was to put more pressure on state and federal lawmakers to tighten rules on gun ownership. “There’s nobody in those shoes, it’s like the emptiness in our hearts from gun violence,” said Mauser, 66, of Littleton, Colorado. The memorial, organized by Avaaz, a U.S.-based civic organization, and the National School Walkout, organized by the activists behind the Women’s March in Washington, are part of a grass-roots movement that grew out of the killing of 17 students and staff at a Florida high school a month ago.

Gun Laws Since Sandy Hook Have Favored The Gun Lobby

March 5, 2018 By Matt Vasilogambros, Pewtrusts.org Educate! Gun Control, Guns, Legislation, Reform

In the two weeks since the Florida school massacre, state lawmakers around the country have introduced bills to ban bump stocks, ban assault weapons, and expand background checks — and also to arm teachers, lighten penalties for carrying without a permit, and waive handgun permit fees. If history foretells, the gun-rights bills will have a better chance at success. In the years since Sandy Hook, when 26 were slain in 2012, states have enacted nearly 600 new gun laws, according to data compiled separately by the National Rifle Association and the Giffords Law Center to Reduce Gun Violence. Nearly two-thirds of those were backed by the NRA. It is “indisputably true” that there have been far more new laws that loosen gun restrictions than tighten them, said Michael Hammond, the legislative counsel at Gun Owners of America, a Virginia-based “no compromise” gun lobbying organization.

Mass Shootings Are A Byproduct Of A Militarized Society

March 2, 2018 By Elliot Swain, Codepink.org Educate! Guns, Mass Shootings, Militarization, Violence

An article by Lucian K. Truscott IV, published in Salon last week, addresses the recent Florida mass killing with a novel suggestion. It implores trigger-happy “gun nuts” to forego the civilian gun market and join the Army. Weapons like the AR-15 and the R-15 are replicas of military munitions, designed to annihilate as many human beings as possible. Civilian use of these guns can hardly be justified by self-defense or any other socially legitimate purpose. If you want to play with high-powered killing machines, Truscott argues, there’s a place for that. “Go down to your local recruiting station and join the fucking Army,” Truscott writes. “They’ll give you a rifle for free, and all the deadly ammo you want, and they’ll train you with human silhouette targets, and they’ll send you over to Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Syria, or Niger, or some fucking hellhole where there are guys with guns very similar to yours who will be good enough to shoot at you, so you can shoot back at them and kill them.”

Freedom Rider: Why The Shooting Will Continue

March 2, 2018 Margaret Kimberley, Blackagendareport.com Educate! Gun Control, Guns, Police, Shooting

Apparently there is nothing worse in America than the act of shooting white people. Ever since the latest attack at a Florida high school there has been talk of little else. The school shooting enveloped every other issue and was used to vilify Russia, the FBI, Bernie Sanders and the National Rifle Association all at once. One cannot watch a Youtube video without being subjected to the NRA’s public relations juggernaut meant to quiet a population which had forgotten about shootings for a while. America has a unique history with firearms. The settler colonial state enshrined gun ownership into the constitution because of a determination to maintain chattel slavery and the violent enforcement which had to go with it.

From Billions To Bombs & Our Gun Problem

March 1, 2018 Eleanor Goldfield, Occupy.com Resistance Report Bombing, Guns, Taxes, Wars and Militarism

We’ve heard the anti-gun and pro-gun conversation. But that’s not a complete conversation - by any stretch of the imagination. scott crow discusses the very real gun problem we have in this country and why neither the liberals nor the conservatives have the answer. His latest book, “Setting Sights” shares histories and present-day examples of community armed self-defense in an effort to de-romanticize, educate and engage readers in the conversations we need to be having - in order to save lives and collectively work for justice.

Guns And Liberty

February 28, 2018 By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com Educate! Guns, Mass Shootings, Second Amendment, Violence

The proliferation of guns in American society is not only profitable for gun manufacturers, it fools the disempowered into fetishizing weapons as a guarantor of political agency. Guns buttress the myth of a rugged individualism that atomizes Americans, disdains organization and obliterates community, compounding powerlessness. Gun ownership in the United States, largely criminalized for poor people of color, is a potent tool of oppression. It does not protect us from tyranny. It is an instrument of tyranny. “Second Amendment cultists truly believe that guns are political power,” writes Mark Ames, the author of “Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond.” “[They believe that] guns in fact are the only source of political power.

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