Some Tragedies More Tragic than Others

The Daily Caller notes Bloomberg’s coalition has been surprisingly silent on some recent mass shootings. On the surface, I suppose we shouldn’t consider this a bad thing. But the reason neither of these was so readily exploited by MAIG is because neither of them really work for accomplishing their goals.

One goal is keeping wealthy political elites engaged with the issue. At this point, MAIG probably realizes a broad grassroots movement isn’t possible with this issue, or at the least realize building one is a decades long effort. In the mean time, they have to motivate their base. Most wealthy elites don’t live in crappy apartments with seedy tenants. In order to stoke the fears and insecurities of elites, they have to be able to imagine they, or others like them, could be the victims. That’s one reason Sandy Hook was so ripe to exploit for political purposes, it struck at their very heart. Humans are tribal creatures, and for better or worse, we’re more concerned about what happens, or what could happen, to our own tribe than we are about people who are perceived as not being one of us. In the short term, MAIG needs political elites in the fight, both for funding and for political support.

The second shooting mentioned happened in California, where the weapons used were quite illegal. That doesn’t really fit the narrative either. Do you really want the risk the media will start the discussion of how California’s strictest-in-the-nation gun control laws aren’t effective at stopping mass killers? The killer illegally built a banned-in-California AR-15, and converted a black powder revolver into a cartridge firing revolver. We’ve always mentioned that these people are more resourceful than they are often given credit for, and strict gun control isn’t likely to offer much of an obstacle. This is proof of that. Bloomberg is already aware how quickly our side can snatch the media narrative if they aren’t careful. I wouldn’t want to touch this one either if I were them.

But of course, these are cold, hard strategic calculations we’re talking about here, and gun control advocates would never engage in such things. They care: about you, about the children, and most of all about victims. No more names! It’s certainly not about using the news cycle in a strategic manner to further a political agenda. No. That’s only something the evil corporate gun lobby would do.