What would it take to change gun culture?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samson (Post 10395646) Port Arthur changed Australia, but nothing changes America it seems.

Got me thinking. What would it take to turn public opinion solidly against gun ownership? Samson's right in that a mass shooting did that for Australia, but America tends to shrug those off for the most part.



So lets speculate on what couldn't be shrugged off. I'll take what I think is a fairly safe position and see if someone doesn't want to argue a leaner case.



I say it has to be a big-scale, violent, Bundy Ranch scenario that spreads.



Start off with a group doing something obviously illegal that normal people have to follow the law on. Being a deadbeat for cattle-grazing is unsympathetic, but it doesn't mirror popular experience closely enough.



So: Maybe a tax dodger like the Browns back in 2007 or a freeman-on-the-land who insists on driving without a license.



They'd need to get a little movement going like Bundy did, with a bunch of people taking their legal weapons to protect the illegal activity. But that's not going to be enough to get mass notice.



So: It needs to spur a few copy-cats across the country so that it seems like something that could spread, that could happen in your town. People need to get scared that the gun nuts could be actually making good on the rhetoric about the 2nd amendment as a reset button for a democratic government they see as 'tyrannical'.



Then they have to get aggressive. The Bundy milita brandished and pointed weapons at federal agents, but they didn't shoot. Not enough.



So: People would have to die. At least cops. Probably have to kill some women/children to get the enough emotional outrage going. People need to get outraged at the violence and mix it with the previously mentioned fear that it's not an isolated occurrence.



Then the movement needs to be connected somehow to the overall popular right-wing gun culture. Bundy was all about the militias, but that's fringe and out-of-touch.



So: I think he has to be a prominent player in the Tea Party movement. That connects it to the bigger political scene, gives the other GOP factions a stick to beat the tea-partiers with and divert public blame away from their universal pro-gun position.



In a nutshell: I think it would take a large-scale organized horrific abuse of the second amendment that happened to fall along a political faultline before public opinion turns against gun ownership as a societal norm.



Anyone want to say it would take less? More?

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