rickyrick:
Are you saying "follow the money?" I wish there were investigative reporters who were (edit: not) too busy interviewing ex-porn stars to do non-popular work.
I think that the fire driving the youth movement is less about guns and more about "purpose." Young kids for reasons both social and age-related don't have a lot of opportunity to do something "meaningful" and this is their opportunity to "make a difference." It's very giddy stuff. Couple that self-congratulatory high with a pinch of righteousness anger (over someone else's hurt) and a jigger of "don't know anyone sane who thinks they need a gun" and this is a movement that doesn't have a downside. Heck yeah, the average 16 year old is going to jump into that with both feet and eyes closed every time. It reminds me a bit of the "get in touch with nature" movement back in 70s. My cousins were giddy about "nature" until they went camping and got chewed up by mosquitos. It will have to burn itself out on its own; attempts by "anyone over 30" to bring up crazy ideas like "reasoned argument" or "technical requirements" will be fuel for the fire of us vs. them.
Honestly, it's nice that young people wish to engage in public debate. An involved citizenship is essential for a robust democracy or republic. That said, an educated citizenship is essential to chart a wise political course.
The recent protests remind me a bit of the tea party movement: lots of anger about lots of topics. However, the goals of the recent marchers lend themselves to a better expectation of results, in my unprofessional opinion.
The tea partiers failed to seriously organize their priorities to make hard decisions once they got a toe in the door at the national level and their results were diluted; for example, they never decided if they were more for debt reduction than they were for a strong military. Were they willing to shut down the government rather than let it continue in a poor fashion? In the end, they voted status quo as no one wants their constituents to be unsafe.
By contrast, this movement can basically be unified behind a general feel-good ideas of "better mental health care" and "no gun violence" and well, who sits around rooting for gun violence (except hollywood script writers and hollywood action film stars...) or for more crazy people?
As a legislative bonus, they already have a a few core ideas to achieve some of their goals: "Ban X, Ban Y, Ban Z." It's hard to dilute an up/down vote on one topic that has no down side for most of the population, since less than 50% of people own guns and even some of those don't care about such things as ARs, high capacity magazines nor UBCs. The items on their agenda that require actual planning and preparation and monetary and medical resources--for example "better mental health care"--are more than likely going to founder on the legislative shoals for the same reasons that the tea party "agenda" failed, complexity.
I am old--as my driver's license won't stop telling me--and I carry with me the prejudices of my generation. I come from a different time when people dressed up to do serious work: suits and ties for business, law, church. Have you ever seen a picture of MLK at a civil rights speech NOT wearing a suit and tie? Serious work involving serious ideas and thinking is accompanied in my mind by serious composure. I look at the picture of the kids leading these marches in torn jeans and crop tops and I'm thinking the same thing I did when I watched Bill Clinton in his Blues Brother shades playing sax on the Arsenio Hall show in 1992: "Come back when you're ready to lead." I think that the world has moved on from my views and we'd better prepare for a day when a poorly informed populace will clamor for poorly reasoned legislative action never designed to achieve measurable goals.
The system was set up a three corner Republic for this reason. Just as President Trump is a litmus test for the checks and balances system, I think that the near future will have a similar test of the checks and balances system involving firearm rights.
Living on the cutting edge of history is kind of fun, enjoy the ride while you can.