Self Interest

I'm fed up! The latest trope that keeps getting trotted out is that "at least liberals care about kids getting shot." By implication, and sometimes explicitly, others do not. Those others are called out as conservatives/gun owners/pro lifers.

But let's get past the rhetoric and think about it. What do gun owners, et. al. have to "gain" by kids getting shot? Nothing less than the loss of their rights. Now you can accuse gun owners of a lot, but being so selfless that they would act in the interests of liberals against their own rights is not one of them.

On the other hand, who stands to gain from kids getting shot? Now the glib answer of liberals would be the NRA. And it is true, NRA membership took a jump recently. But that isn't a result of kids getting shot - it is a defense against attacks by liberals. Likewise gun sales (especially AR-15 sales) are probably up (I didn't check, this is speculation). But again, it is not because of kids getting shot, but because of attacks against gun owners by liberals. In other words the NRA and gun companies don't benefit from mass shootings, they benefit from liberal attacks. If the liberals really wanted to reduce the power of the mythical gun lobby all they'd have to do is stop attacking gun rights.

No, the real answer to who stands to gain from kids getting shot is the liberals themselves. Who scored massive political gains from the recent massacre? Liberals. Who had bill already written and ready to go to a vote within days of the event? Who had professionally designed web sites ready to be activated, "grass roots" campaigns, letter writing and phone campaigns all ready to go? Liberals.

How long does it take a company to roll out a new web site nationally. How long does it take to get a political campaign running? How long does it take to organize events in all 50 states? How long does it take to get a boycott campaign going? How long does it take to write a bill and bring it to the point of a vote? Quora says 267 days, on average, and that's after it is written, which can take quite a while.

Face it, there is no way this kind of effort was done in a few days and by school kids and even their parents. This was a coordinated effort with a lot of funding and work that had been done beforehand. The liberals were just waiting for kids to be shot so they could move forward and achieve their goals. And not just any kids... couldn't be one where an NRA member was the good guy, or lower income kids, had to be upper middle class white kids because that gets people interested. Did they care about kids getting shot? You betcha - without that they would not have been able to get their way.

Posted in: Guns