As Parkland gun control activists and their surrogates mock the idea of arming teachers, march for gun bans in D.C., and call for new gun controls via Twitter, they risk driving Americans toward the Second Amendment instead of away from it.
They run this risk via their in-your-face gun control hubris, especially when that hubris is directed toward docile actors.
For example, on Monday Rep. Steve King (R-IA) addressed Parkland students who want to raise the minimum age for gun purchases by asking, “If you are a teenager & believe you won’t be responsible enough to own a gun until 21, why should you vote before 21?” That is a reasonable question when one considers that voting and owning guns are both constitutional rights. Yet the responses to his question varied between things too vulgar to print and pronouncements that his political career is over–that he is a pawn of the NRA and is going to be voted out office.
Or consider David Hogg, one of the most frequent spokesmen for Parkland gun control activists. He put out a PSA one week before the student march for gun control and asked, “What if our politicians weren’t the bitch of the NRA?” And it is not just the way he talks about the NRA, although that runs the risk of motivating the group’s five million-plus members to show up and vote. It is also the way he appears to set himself apart from other Americans in general.
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