Get Out of Facebook and Into the N.R.A.s Face

Get Out of Facebook and Into the N.R.A.’s Face



Thomas L. Friedman
6-8 minutes



Cameron Kasky, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, speaking at a rally in Florida on Monday. Joe Skipper/Reuters

Cameron Kasky, a 17-year-old at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who survived last week’s mass shooting, wrote a beautiful essay for CNN.com that declared: “At the end of the day, the students at my school felt one shared experience — our politicians abandoned us by failing to keep guns out of schools. But this time, my classmates and I are going to hold them to account. This time we are going to pressure them to take action. This time we are going to force them to spend more energy protecting human lives than unborn fetuses.”

Cameron, God bless you for that sentiment. But just one piece of respectful advice: If your generation and mine want to get serious about a gun control crusade, we all need to get out of Facebook and into someone’s face: the N.R.A.’s.

This fight can’t be won on Twitter or Instagram. ...........................
I loved seeing the 100 students from your high school taking buses Tuesday to Florida’s capital to directly press lawmakers. That’s a great start. I hope every high school follows.

But, ultimately, nothing will change unless young and old who oppose the N.R.A. run for office, vote, help someone vote, register someone to vote or help fund someone’s campaign — so we can threaten the same electoral pain as the National Rifle Association, which, according to PolitiFact, spent $203.2 million between 1998 and 2017 funding its candidates, defeating gun control advocates and lobbying. This is not about persuading people with better ideas. We tried that. It’s about generating raw electoral power and pain.
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Are some Democratic lawmakers cowards, too? You bet........................................... .........................This is primarily a G.O.P. problem today.


How do we know that? Read the paper or the web. .......................................................................................But G.O.P. lawmakers are mute on this because President Trump energizes their base and ensures their $174,000-a-year jobs and free parking at Reagan National Airport.

This is a party whose evangelicals have been telling us for decades that life is so sacred the G.O.P. must oppose abortion — even in the case of rape, incest or risk to the mother’s life. But Republicans won’t back common-sense gun laws that would protect fully developed human beings — ......................


............................ Republicans did so because Trump energizes their base and ensures that they keep their $174,000-a-year jobs and free parking at Reagan National Airport.


Trying to embarrass them to act on principle is wasted breath.................................

They know full well that most voters are not asking to scrap the Second Amendment, but --------------------

They know full well that a common-sense banning of all military assault weapons, ..................

They know full well that they’re in the grip of an N.R.A. cult,.......................