Did March For Our Lives Go Too Far Attacking The Right?

Image courtesy of Wikimedia

While March For Our Lives was going on on Saturday, many on the Right felt personally attacked. As CBS commentator Michael Graham put it –

Saturday’s #MarchForOurLives was billed as a protest against gun violence. But for many Americans on the Right, it felt like they were under attack.

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For a non-partisan rally against gun violence, there was an awful lot of messaging about a Republican President and GOP elected officials like Sen. Marco Rubio. As student speaker Sarah Chadwick put it: “We will no longer be hunted down and treated like prey by politicians who simply don’t care about us.”

David Hogg was even more explicit: “The cold grasp of corruption shackles the District of Columbia…To those politicians supported by the NRA, that allow the continued slaughter of our children and our future, I say: Get your résumés ready.”

Graham then asks,

So how does it feel to spend a day being called a child murderer on national television?

“You get used to it,” said Cam Edwards, host of the popular “Cam and Company” show on NRATV. “This is nothing new, maybe just more ramped up.”

Edwards makes the point that the NRA is a membership organization and an attack on it is an attack on the 6 million or so people who choose to send in their $40 a year because they want to protect what they see as a constitutional right.

“NRA members are some of the best people in this country: first responders, educators, veterans, moms and dads,” Edwards says. “Not people who care more about their guns than their kids. And certainly not domestic terrorists.”

There’s something else Americans who support gun rights are: Registered voters.

Not only are gun rights supporters heavily active in politics, gun supporters also didn’t sit idly by on Saturday. Several counter-protests were also happening across the country.

Don Davis 2nd Amendment Rock. Image courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/atgeist/8079841197/in/photostream/

Among these demonstrations:

• Hundreds 2nd Amendment supporters came out for the March For Our Guns rally in Helena, MT*
• Over 1000 supporters were expected at a similar rally in D.C.
• Thousands of gun rights supporters marched throughout Michigan
• About 1000 supporters showed up in Salt Lake City for March Before Our Lives
• Hundreds of protestors also came out in Sandpoint, ID for March For Our Rights

At the same time, the NRA posted an interview discussing the importance of gun rights –

CBS’ Graham ends his piece discussing the importance of the NRA in this discussion –

And while support for the NRA has fallen recently—37 percent favorable, 40 percent unfavorable—that’s still more than 100 million Americans with a positive view this “child murdering” organization.

If these Americans get the message that Democrats and the Left are declaring them Public Enemy #1, if they feel like their culture and values are under assault, that’s one way to get a relatively unmotivated GOP base fired up for the midterms.

Delaney Tarr, one of the student speakers said on Saturday: “We will take the big and we will take the small, but we will keep fighting. When they give us that inch, that bump stock ban, we will take a mile. We’re not here for bread crumbs. We are here for real change.”

Gun control advocates should hope America’s gun owners didn’t get the message.

Did you get the message? How did you (or do you everyday?) show your support for our 2nd Amendment? Let us know your views in the comments.

*Correction: A reader identified an error that was corrected – The mention of “St. Helena, MT” was edited to “Helena, MT”. (April 2, 2018)