More proof that propaganda works, I guess.
It's simply amazing how the NRA is at once all-powerful and also on the ropes and on the brink of dissolving. It's also amazing how there is absolutely no discussion about the merits of gun-control laws anymore. Like conspiracy theorist believers, there is a self-contained, fact-and-reason-proof bubble around the most ardent of gun-control proponents that works like this:
Anything a pro-gun-control group proposed is the very definition of "reasonable". It's reasonable because Americans can still own a firearm, even if it's a single muzzle-loading rifle that takes $10,000 and 10 years to get.
If you disagree, you're a Russian troll or trollbot, a gun nut, a gun fanatic, a paid NRA stooge, and/or a terrorist and little kids getting shot in school shootings is what you beat off to in the shower every morning.
This Group used to be fairly busy, with robust discussions about the pros and cons of various aspects and proposals of gun control.
Now the divide has gotten so great it's generally not a topic that is able to be discussed. The sides has simply decided that their position is right, anything challenging it is wrong, and that absolves them from the sin of having to think anymore. For example, the control side has now enshrined into their agenda that things they term "assault weapons" must be banned, and dismiss any analysis or discussion. The debate has never gone away because the definition of "assault weapon" is and always has been arbitrary and mutable, but pointing that out equals "NRA shrill" or whatever. So, it's simply been absorbed into the system of beliefs and no longer subject to scrutiny or debate.
So what can you do? 
But here is, once again, my biggest worry: the pro-control side sees the violence problem in America as a hardware problem. This makes them do unhelpful things that a) don't help violence, b) do mobilize pro-gun voters, c) spend political capital on these things, and d) ignore the root causes of violence.
The rich and powerful don't want us to look at things, like drug legalization or the school-to-prison pipeline or privatized prisons or wealth inequality or gerrymandering or election fraud, that actually help to cause high rates of violence. Blaming the hardware means you don't have to look at the system, and not changing the system is exactly what they want!
Look how low their taxes are! Look how many lobbyists they can hire! Look how much influence they have! Look how much the Koch brothers have given to various causes over the decades to shift the politics to the right in this country!
Dammit, every week I listen to the Best of the Left podcast (among others) and I hear experts and panelists discussing the core structural issues with this country, and I want so badly to change them, to fix them. But there's this albatross hanging around the neck of the Democratic party and it's shaped like the 1993 Assault-Weapons Ban, and it keeps dragging us down!
300 lousy votes in Florida shifted from Shrub to Gore, we have President Gore. A few tens of thousands of votes in like 3 states shift sides in 2016, we have President Clinton instead of Twitler.
And now I'm getting the feeling that once again, this is going to somehow be Priority 1. Not investigations leading up to impeachment and removal from office. Not working on sane tax policy or the school-lunch program or empowering the EPA or renewing the Violence Against Woman Act... this issue again!
It's goddamn tiring. It's the illusion of progress, the comforting fantasy of "making a difference". And it doesn't help an iota.
And to shift gears slightly, maybe tens of millions of parents and teachers and school administrators need to stop telling tens of millions of school kids that TODAY COULD BE THE DAY YOU ARE MURDERED IN SCHOOL. That might help with the "millions of kids are terrified" problem. After all, they do fire drills, right? But do parents and such give the kids such dire warnings that millions of kids are terrified of burning to death in school?
No, they don't?
Hmmm... almost like they're trying to accomplish a political goal.
Look, have 2 drills: an evacuation drill and a security drill. One is to get everybody out of the building as quickly as possible in a safe and orderly fashion, and another is to keep everybody in the building and to prevent people from moving into or around the building.
Since there are various reasons that each drill could be used (gas leak, chem lab mishap, earthquake damage, tornado, nearby SWAT raid, riot) then just call them that: evac drill and lockdown drill.
Edit history
= new reply since forum marked as read