I just don't have the heart to write anything about this disgusting response to Parkland by the right wing gun nuts so I'll just let Charlie Pierce say it for me:
The inhuman—and utterly indecent—quick-twitch muscles of the conservative media apparatus already are at work on two fronts as regards the most recent schoolhouse massacre. First, in a take so hot it melted ice on Krypton, the ruminations of the Gateway Pundit, a.k.a. The Dumbest Man On The Internet (copyright Wonkette LLC) have managed to stumble drunkenly into the mainstream, courtesy of former congresscritter and Trump apologist Jack Kingston, who has managed to score a gig with the endless roster of pundits on CNN. From HuffPost:“Their sorrow can very easily be hijacked by left-wing groups who have an agenda,” former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) told CNN’s “New Day” on Tuesday, specifically naming billionaire and liberal activist George Soros. “Do we really think 17-year-olds on their own are going to plan a nationwide rally?” the conservative activist continued.
The Florida kids have fought back, of course, as well they should. But they weren’t who Kingston was talking to. He was talking to the people who log onto TDMOTI every morning over their Wheatena and unfiltered Marlboros while listening to the local wingnut radio host and watching Fox and Friends. And by emphasizing George Soros, Kingston also was bigot-signaling to anti-Semites as well. In short, he was talking to the people to whom David Brooks has said we’ve all been terribly unkind, as he argues in his Monday column in Mother Times.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it is that guns have become a cultural flash point in a nation that is unequal and divided. The people who defend gun rights believe that snobbish elites look down on their morals and want to destroy their culture. If we end up telling such people that they and their guns are despicable, they will just despise us back and dig in their heels. So if you want to stop school shootings it’s not enough just to vent and march. It’s necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points. There has to be trust and respect first. Then we can strike a compromise on guns as guns, and not some sacred cross in the culture war.
It’s not enough that the Times has visited every damn diner in every damn town between Philadelphia and Des Moines in order to interview every crank who voted for the current president*. It’s not enough that I have to understand everyone who cloaks their bigotry in incense and Scripture. It’s not enough that I have to respect every backwater burg in which the people blame the opioid epidemic on godlessness and rap music and the undocumented Mexican who sells them their six-pack at the Gas ‘n Go every Friday night. Where is it written that I have to buy all of these people a cookie before I can disagree with them?
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, has been assuring his dad that the right move was to stay strong on gun rights and draw a hard line on the issue that helped propel him in the 2016 election. He is among the host of people talking to the president in the wake of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which resulted in the death of 17 people. But the fact that he is family makes his access more personal and his guidance more trusted.
For those hoping to turn the latest national tragedy into a robust legislative response on guns, this isn’t a good thing. While some friends have urged Trump to adopt a more balanced approach, or even for the revival of an assault-weapons ban, Trump Jr. has argued that there was no time for even a hint of reversion to the more restrictive views on guns that Trump espoused years before he became leader of the Republican Party.
According to three sources with knowledge of their conversations, the president and Trump Jr. repeatedly discussed gun control over the long Presidents’ Day weekend, often as they both closely watched a TV airing footage in real-time of young Parkland students savaging the president for his inaction.
When polled on his opinions on the matter, the first son emphatically replied that the president must not waver on his pro-gun stance, whatever the impassioned calls for reform. Trump Jr., according to these sources, reminded his father that inching toward gun control would be immediately taken by his conservative base—as well as major donors and motivated activist networks, including the National Rifle Association—as an unforgivable betrayal.
Eric Trump, his middle son, readily agreed.
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