What effect will the “March for Our Lives” demonstrations and speeches have?
I think they’ll probably get their assault weapons ban. I also think it will have no measurable effect on school violence or gun homicides more generally.
What effect will the “March for Our Lives” demonstrations and speeches have?
I think they’ll probably get their assault weapons ban. I also think it will have no measurable effect on school violence or gun homicides more generally.
Nope. There will be no new weapons bans. This will played out for time, as always, and nothing will happen. Trump won’t sign off on anything. He would lose his base and all chances of re-election. (I have at least a 30% chance of being wrong on this. So far his base has been able to make excuses for anything he does. I just think that the gun people are totally committed.)
Steve
No effect nationally.
It won’t have any effect. If the Democrats win back the House they will probably pass some kind of assault weapons ban which will, obviously, go nowhere.
Been debating this a bit over at OTB. Frankly, I don’t see any way forward in terms of effective policy at present.
The question not being addressed is what would an effective policy be? Particularly one that was narrowly tailored to achieve its objective.
Armed guards, metal detectors and a relatively secure perimeter similar to what a federal courthouse might have. Assuming the objective is safe schools, because some of the crazy attention-getting stuff will just gravitate to a less secure place.
“The question not being addressed is what would an effective policy be? Particularly one that was narrowly tailored to achieve its objective.”
I think the problem is more fundamental than that – there is no concrete objective that would allow us to determine if a policy is effective or not.
Bump stocks are being banned; the ban on firearms research by the CDC is being lifted, that’s an achievement already.
Precisely what I would have proposed. The failure to embrace that as a solution makes one wonder if the objective is securing schools.
Some of the speakers at the marches explicitly rejected that limited objective. They were advocating something like eliminating gun violence, an objective more like world peace or eliminating poverty. Those aren’t actionable items, at least not from the standpoint of actually accomplishing them.