Are the times changing?  By Hank Silverberg

(Washington, DC March, 24, 2018)

                                        

                                                  Come senators, congressmen
                                             Please heed the call
                                            Don't stand in the doorway
                                             Don't block up the hall
                                            For he that gets hurt
                                            Will be he who has stalled
                                            There's a battle outside ragin'
                                             It'll soon shake your windows
                                             And rattle your walls
                                             For the times they are a-changin'    

                                                                                                                     --Bob Dylan, 1964

     I was thinking about the protest movements of the 1960’s and 70’s as I watched a half million people,  mostly young, on the National Mall in D-C this past week gather to protest gun violence. And then Jennifer Hudson, whose own family was racked by gun violence, closed the huge rally with her rendition of Bob Dylan’s Times They Are a Changin’ .  It was a full circle. The Baby Boom generation, my generation, had radically altered U-S Foreign policy, helping if not forcing, the end to the Vietnam War and legal segregation with the use of massive protests. Now their grandchildren are trying to do the same thing with gun violence. 

(Washington, DC)

       The murder of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day was the catalyst this time, but that was just the latest symptom in a gun culture that must be changed. The huge gathering in Washington took place while the President and Congress were out of town, but the message echoed in hundreds of big cities and small towns across the country where smaller but similar protests took place. Most of these teenagers will soon be eligible to vote, thousands of them by this November. Numerous reports indicate as many as  4,800 registered to vote at the weekend events all over the country.  

        The students, first at Douglas High and then at high schools nationwide, used social media to coordinate their efforts, to the astonishment of many older folks oblivious to the power of the mobile internet.  Others seemed surprised about how well those students expressed themselves, students from a much maligned public education system that many think is totally broken and unfixable.

      But none of it surprised me. The melting pot which is America has always produced young leaders for more than two centuries now.  Nathan Hale was 21 in 1776, when he was hung by the British for spying for the Continental Army. Audie Murphy was 19 when he received the Medal of Honor for valor in World War Two. John Lewis and Julian Bond were just 23 when they helped organize the 1963 March on Washington.

           As a reporter I may have covered a couple of hundred protests over 40 years, but somehow this one was different. On the stage in Washington along with the students from middle class Parkland, Florida, were students from inner city D-C and Chicago. The theme was not just school safety, but the ravaging effect gun violence is having on the nation as a whole. We pay attention when a man walks into a Sunday service and kills 26 people in a Texas Church, but somehow there has been little connection made to drive-by shootings in Southeast D-C or a murder on the streets of Baltimore--at least until now.                                           

(West Capitol Park, Albany, NY)

     What will be the lasting impact of this protest? Just before the rally, it can be noted that the President did sign an executive order banning the sale of so called “bump stocks” that turn semi-automatic weapons into machine guns. Congress also included funding in the budget just signed to reinstate research at the CDC on gun violence. During the protest,  the White House issued a terse statement applauding the protesters for “exercising their First Amendment righs”. It’s hard to predict if there will be anything more unless the movement grows and continues to put on the pressure as the anti-war movement did four decades ago.      

(On the Green, Guilford,Ct) 

    A Marist College Poll conducted just after the Parkland shootings indicated 71% of Americans, including 58% of gun owners, agree that there needs to be stricter gun laws. Twenty-three percent say they should stay as they are, and 5% want gun laws loosened. Clearly this is an indication that a majority of the people in the United States want change. But that doesn't mean that this Congress, with a broken Republican party in charge, is even listening.
    The NRA remains the most effective lobbying group in the United States, and many legislators on both the state and federal level have taken their money.  

      So what is the reaction to the rally from the NRA? The group posted this statement on their Facebook page:

“Today’s protests aren’t spontaneous. Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children as part of their plan to DESTROY the Second Amendment and strip us of our right to defend ourselves and our loved ones.”

The group’s leadership apparently has no clue about the power of social media to a growing movement and prefers instead to spread fear and disinformation. It’s a clear indication that the NRA has joined the conspiracy theorists and has lost all credibility as a responsible participant in the gun debate.  

(Pershing Park, Los Angeles) 

A few weeks ago on this blog I listed some moderate suggestions on how to lower the threat from guns. I repeat them here below. 

   Suggestions for better gun control:  

 (Since last month, one of my suggestions has already happend –banning bump stocks, but it still needs to be codified)   

· Raise the age to purchase all guns to 21. (We regulate drinking, driving, smoking and many other things. The Second Amendment mentions no age for owning a gun, and if it’s not specifically written in the Constitution, Congress can easily and constitutionally act on it.)  

· Require a ten day waiting period with a national background check on all gun purchases. (Anyone accused of a violent crime like domestic violence should not be allowed to purchase a gun. Anyone who has been treated for mental illness can be evaluated, anyone on the no-fly list because of connections to terrorists groups can be weeded out.)  

· Require anyone purchasing a gun to take a course in the proper care and safety of their gun. Those who already legally own a gun would be required to take the course again after two years if they purchase another gun.

· Limit the size of ammo magazines to ten rounds. (The shooter in the Sandy Hook attack had a  30 round magazine and killed 26 people.)  Limit the number of magazines at each purchase to one.

· Adopt a national “one gun a month” law. (Does anybody need more than 12 new guns a year?)

            It is not clear yet if this past weekend’s events are the start of an earth shaking movement. But as an American, and a grandfather, I am proud of Generation Z.  Their demands on gun control are reasonable and practical. Now let's get them to the ballot box dragging their millenial cousins with them and let Congress feel the heat!   

           “The conservatives who say, "Let us not move so fast," and the extremists who say, "Let us go out and whip the world," would tell you that they are as far apart as the poles. But there is a striking parallel: They accomplish nothing—Martin Luther King Jr, 1963

  (Photo Credits: Patricia Guadalupe, and Paula Wolfson Stevenson in D-C, Bridget Ball Shaw in Albany,  NY, Valerie Reynolds Carubia in Guilford, CT, Christine Mason in L-A.) 

                             (Comments and suggestions are always welcome. See below.)

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