Part of the effort following the Parkland shooting has been to register young voters and get them to turn out for the 2018 midterms. The thinking is that 18-year-olds might make enough of a difference that pro-gun legislators will be ousted in favor of pro-gun control lawmakers.
The March For Our Lives featured numerous people registering voters, but it seems the effort isn’t even close to over.
Gun control advocates are planning to send birthday packages to newly turned 18-year-olds in 10 states where they believe pro-gun lawmakers are vulnerable. Inside each: a voter registration form.
The effort is part of a teen voter sign-up campaign aimed at electing a gun control-friendly Congress in November by seizing the momentum of a movement driven by young people shaken by gun violence, organizers told Reuters.
“I think young people are going to make a huge difference in this election, and the new energy we’re seeing is going to tip the scales in a number of races,” said Isabelle James, political director for Giffords, which advocates more restrictive gun laws.
The campaign, “Our Lives, Our Votes,” combines the efforts of Giffords and two other groups following last month’s massive rallies inspired by the deadly February school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Organizers said they hoped to register at least 50,000 18- and 19-year-olds in 10 battleground states.
“America’s children took to the streets and led marches with a unified message that rang out across the country: We need a Congress that will protect us,” former Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, co-founder of Giffords, said in an emailed statement. Giffords was seriously wounded in a 2011 Arizona shooting rampage.
The other groups behind “Our Lives, Our Votes” are Everytown for Gun Safety, which includes more than 1,000 current and former mayors, and NextGen America, a liberal group founded by billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer.
So yeah, it’s astroturf, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be effective.
What we have to do is provide counters to the anti-gun talking points being foisted on the American people at every opportunity.
It might also behoove pro-Second Amendment groups to do the same in places where they think anti-gun politicians might be vulnerable. After all, the Parkland chorus of kids isn’t universal. They don’t speak for their generation, though they like to delude themselves into thinking so. They don’t even seem to speak for their own school.
Rally the teens who support our Second Amendment, get them registered to vote, and mobilize them to counter this nonsense.
Right now, the anti-gunners think they have the initiative. Okay, maybe they actually do. However, I also think the more radical elements of their movement scare the bejeezus out of ordinary Americans. While many might think an assault weapons ban is alright, they don’t want to see the Second Amendment dismantled. Yet, that is on the table, and few in the gun control crowd are lashing out at the idea.
That’s the chink in the armor, and that’s how we beat them. We all know that repealing the Second Amendment is their endgame. We just need to use that and remind the American voters who they’re dealing with.
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