Causes of Our National Gun Crisis, Part 3

The remaining major causes of our national gun crises are a combination of the structural and behavioral. Let me start with the structural, then weave in behavioral.

In the 1960s, wise voices were already trying to warn us of a possible impending disaster – one, which was splitting apart our locally based sense of community and creating much larger, more adversarial, more divisive, and less civil, and less cantered on acting for the common good This rise and rapid expansion of organizations bundling together the funds and power of focused industries and existing groups of people with wealth and power. These organizations quickly began propaganda campaigns to create echo chambers which could well overwhelm the sense of common good and community interest along with gifts to politicians, and contributions to political campaigns.

Then came “bundlers” -- people and organizations who would collect money from a variety of sources and direct it to achieve a self-serving common political end. The most notorious of these is Grover Norquist a man who amasses enormous amounts of money from the wealthy and from corporate interest. He then makes it known to politicians that money is available for political campaigns. The catch is that, to get the money, a politicians must sign a pledge not to support any actions which would raise taxes in any way. Most Republica members of Congress have signed that pledge.

In the 1990s, two other political developments arose which created a truly toxic political brew. The first consisted of the action of politicians, chiefly Gingrich, Drick Armee, and Delay. These three and their characterless “go0alongs” changed politics from a common endeavor intended to serve the public good to an ultra-aggressive and uncivil all-out total war against Democrats To fund that war they also re-defined the role of members of Congress, demanding that ll Republican members spend a huge amount of their time in raising money for the party and for individual campaigns, instead of attending to their intended roles as servants of the people.

That created an ever-larger demand for money for political campaigns, as well as increasing ethical vulnerably for persons running for office In order to find that money, Mitch McConnell almost singlehandedly provided and spread a bogus ideological justification. He spread, repeatedly, two ideas: (1) in political campaigns money equals speech, and (2) corporations are people.

Both ideas are absurd. At accept the premise that money equals speech, one is saying that a person or organization willing to commit more money to political causes and campaigns has a greater freedom of speech. That is exactly what the Citizens United ruling did. To Say that a corporation I a person who is invested in one or more corporations, has a greater right to speech, in that his or her voice is expressed through both his person and through the corporation. I find it more than most puzzling that lur Supreme Court has come to accept both of McConnell’s contrived, self' serving ideas.

Add to that the fact that Republican legislation and court rulings now allow political action groups (PACs) to be formed by almost anyone, to amass unlimited funds from unidentified sources and to pour that money into any political campaign. Woen together, all these developments create a most toxic brew potentially eroding the underpinnings of our democratic political system. I will continue with the causes in part 4, then conclude with what needs to be done in part 5.