Day: March 24, 2021

Today’s Provocative Question, Fandango asked a question related to gun control, whether we thought politicians would finally act. His full question, plus my initial response, are here.

But I should have added something more.

What I should have said, even if we managed to adopt something, we just solved one half of the problem. We just took new guns off the streets.

Now, what do we do about all those already out there?

Takers, anyone?

Today’s Provocative Question, Fandango asks:

Do you think that there is any chance that the U.S. Congress will ever take decisive, bipartisan action to pass and enact nationwide common sense gun laws to try and stem the tide of mass shootings, or is the best that the American Congress will ever do is to send thoughts and prayers to the families of loved ones killed in mass shooting incidents?

---

You have three types of politicians:

1. Politicians who want to do something
2. Politicians who don’t want to do something
3. Politicians who might want to do something, if only they had a fair wind behind them.

That first group are in the bag. Forget ’em.

The second group… well, you just gotta hope that few enough people vote for these guys that their voice is small. Otherwise, the US is fucked. The rest of the world will watch it implode and think “thank god that’s not us”. Which is, basically, what we do at the moment.

The third category is the most imteresting. Maybe, just maybe, it holds the balance of power?

By “a fair wind”, what I mean is a situation where they could vote with their conscience without any fear of backlash. Especially, from sponsors.

My conclusion here is that the USA should somehow adopt publicly-funded campaigns, to sideline donors. As in, as long as they have enough public support, politicians don’t need to worry about their funding next time around. Enough? I don’t really know how this would work – a party that attracted maybe 20% of the vote last time around is eligible to be funded this time around? Straight away that’s not perfect because you just barred any new parties. But, you know, there are plenty more intelligent people than me, who could be thinking about this.

And something with teeth to back that up. Penalty, disqualification?

I’m under no illusion how difficult this will be, especially since we’re talking constitutional changes here, so the bar is that much higher. But, where there’s a will… Otherwise, see (2).