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gun legislation

Democracy

Jon Stewart just gave an 8-minute masterclass in highlighting gun politics hypocrisy

Stewart used an Oklahoma lawmaker's own arguments to show why his anti-gun-regulation stance doesn't make sense.

Jon Stewart interviewed State Sen. Nathan Dahm about gun legislation.

Jon Stewart is a unicorn among interviewers, masterfully striking a balance between calm questioning and insisting on interviewees providing answers. Not deflections. Not pivots or side steps. Actual, direct answers to the questions he's asking.

Anyone who has interviewed a politician knows how hard striking that balance can be. Politicians are rhetorical magicians, saying lots of words that seem like an answer to a question, without actually answering it at all. Sometimes their avoidance methods are obvious, but usually, they know how to manipulate and control a conversation, deftly steering it in the direction they want it to go. If allowed to, they will not only avoid directly answering a question, but they will manhandle the entire interview, filling the air time with their own messaging. Politely letting them talk allows them to pull all of their favorite tricks.

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Democracy

A man told me gun laws would create more 'soft targets.' He summed up the whole problem.

As far as I know, there are only two places in the world where people living their lives are referred to as 'soft targets.'

Photo by Taylor Wilcox on Unsplash

Only in America are kids in classrooms referred to as "soft targets."

On the Fourth of July, a gunman opened fire at a parade in quaint Highland Park, Illinois, killing at least six people, injuring dozens and traumatizing (once again) an entire nation.

My family member who was at the parade was able to flee to safety, but the trauma of what she experienced will linger. For the toddler with the blood-soaked sock, who was carried to safety by a stranger after being pulled from under his father's bullet-torn body and ended up losing both of his parents in the massacre, life will never be the same.

There's a phrase I keep seeing in debates over gun violence, one that I can't seem to shake from my mind. After the Uvalde school shooting, I shared my thoughts on why arming teachers is a bad idea, and a gentleman responded with this brief comment:

"Way to create more soft targets."

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Amerie Jo Garza was one of 19 schoolchildren killed by a gunman at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Fellow Americans, it's long past time to take a good, hard look in the mirror.

The fact that we just had yet another horrific school shooting, with 19 children and two teachers being massacred in their classrooms by a guy with military-style guns that he easily and legally obtained, is maddening. The fact that we've seen this same story play out in schools across the country over and over and over again is enraging. The fact that too many of our lawmakers refuse to take any legislative action whatsoever to try to curb the constant carnage, completely ignoring the vast amounts of data that show gun laws do work to reduce gun violence, is disgusting.

Sandy Hook should have been enough. Parkland should have been enough. Columbine should have been enough. Every single school shooting should have been the end of it. But here we are.

As the individual stories of the children killed at Robb Elementary School come to light, we can't turn away. We must bear witness to what they experienced, to the terror they and their surviving classmates endured, to the anguish and heartbreak of their loved ones.

But as we do that, let's not embrace "brave hero" narratives for these children the way we do with soldiers on the battlefield. Please. Let's just not.

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Dunblane Primary School was the site of the last school shooting in the U.K. in 1996.

On March 13, 1996, a man walked into Dunblane Primary School in Scotland with four legally purchased handguns and 734 rounds of ammunition, and proceeded to shoot and kill 16 children—5 and 6 years old—as well as their 45-year-old teacher before killing himself. It was Britain's worst school shooting—and its last to date.

Unlike in the United States, where school shootings have become routine with basically no legislation being enacted to try to stop them, the British government took decisive action. After a petition campaign demanding more stringent gun laws, Parliament passed laws banning private ownership of most handguns.

"We had a tragedy that made people think, as a matter of common sense, that this needs fixing," Rebecca Peters, director of International Action Network on Small Arms, told the Washington Post in 2007. "It should never have been possible for someone to buy, legally and easily, guns that could be concealed in his pocket. That is not possible anymore in Britain."

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