Initial media reports, including some comments here on Kos, portrayed Beto O’Rourke’s pledge at the Houston debate to take away guns designed for the battlefield, such as assault weapons, with a mandatory buyback program as political hara-kiri and a blunder that was going to hurt all Democrats in the next election. The other side was going to play Beto’s “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47” clip ad nauseum, and re-elect Trump.
Beto had crossed a line that was so radioactive, all that could be expected was doom. In fact, that line is merely something Mark Twain once called a cornpone opinion, an uninformed belief based on a perception of what the majority believes. Of course, that line was also a lie perfected over decades by the NRA.
Humans aren’t born with the instinctual cues of baboons or geese—like how to groom a clan member or fly south in the winter. We don’t know what to do, so we do what we perceive the majority is doing, sociologists tell us. Oftentimes, that perception is way off, and one of the reasons is that what people think is the official position of the majority is old news.
Fifty-Six Percent of Americans Support a Ban on Assault Weapons
And that’s what polls are showing. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll, 56% of Americans would support a ban on assault weapons. That includes a third of Republicans and 4 in 10 gun owners. On mandatory buyback of assault weapons, a little over 50% support it in the Post poll.
The people are way ahead of the politicians on the need to take action now on gun violence. I was on a flight in the Midwest recently, and I sat next to a friendly, gray-haired guy who was on his way to a client’s office for a sales meeting. We discovered that we both carry cell phones grudgingly and leave them behind on purpose whenever possible, driving others crazy. Possibly because of that, he and I were more open to having a conversation than scrolling through celebrity Instagram photos.
As the conversation developed, he told me about his farm family going way back in Iowa, how, at close to retiring, he felt good that he’d taken care of his family, but then things shifted. “You know what keeps me up at night?” he asked. “Worrying that someone is going to shoot my grandkids at school.”
What’s Wrong with Us?
He told me about shooter drills his grandchildren went through and the fear those put into them, who, instead of being at the safest place in town, are now in the line of fire. “It’s crazy!” he said. He knew that the Australians and New Zealanders solved their relatively rare mass shooting problems with legislation. “New Zealand did it in 24 hours,” he said. “What’s wrong with us?”
We both agreed on the one-word answer: corruption. The NRA and bought-off, gutless politicians. I talked to him about a group, RepresentUs, that has managed to get anti-corruption and anti-gerrymandering legislation passed in red states and blue to help saner voices determine election outcomes. He agreed with that approach and was fed up with money in politics.
Then I told him, “Yeah, we are in dark times now.” And only then did I know we were on opposite sides of the political aisle. “Okay, I see you are a Democrat,” he said. He was a Republican, a Trump voter, and a gun owner. But we kept talking, focused on the things we agreed on. We bumped into each other at the airport the next day on our way back from our business meetings, and he invited me to have a beer on him.
Things have changed on the gun issue. Fifteen years of mass shootings with assault rifles since the ban on these weapons expired has shifted the opinions of even long-time red state voters. The engine behind the change is the conversations between parents, grandparents and their kids and grandkids about the ludicrous, insane need to have shooter drills in school and the fear and nightmares that creates in families.
Bulletproof Backpacks for School
Going to school is now going to war. Google “bulletproof backpacks for school,” and see all the entries that come up. North Face, Guard Dog, BulletBlocker, TuffyPacks. This is the pathetic state of affairs in an America that has been turned into a carnival shooting gallery by the cowardice of politicians running scared of radical right-wing bagmen for the gun companies.
Beto O’Rourke is blowing past the usual timid talking points and red lines, showing that the flimsy cornpone opinions and no-go zones on gun violence are bogus. Biden, Harris, Sanders, and Castro complimented Beto on stage in Houston for taking the initiative on guns and the thing that we elect presidents to demonstrate: leadership, which is the act of doing what’s right, no matter how popular it is.
His peers know, and more of us are going to get to know in a campaign that’s six months away from the first primary votes that Beto is a leader of uncommon conviction and not just on guns. He has detailed policies on immigration in an election where that will be the featured issue, on climate change and healthcare, and is calling out Trump as the racist and fascist he is, going on location to wherever the latest Individual-1 travesty has wreaked havoc. This is truth to power that Americans are desperately looking for.
I’ve read that some here are giving Beto another look. Great to hear. Bold ideas, passionately delivered and compellingly explained, such as his assault weapon buyback program (that will not break down home doors) change beliefs about what can be done and reveal how fluid accepted beliefs can be. I see many more minds becoming open to Beto’s unflinching leadership by next year.
If you would like to learn more about Beto’s positions on the issues and the well-thought-out policies he has developed or contribute to the campaign, you can click here.