Right and Left React to the Las Vegas Shooting and the Gun Control Debate
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Version 0 of 1. The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. That’s why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen. Has this series exposed you to new ideas? Tell us how. Email us at ourpicks@nytimes.com. For an archive of all the Partisan Writing Roundups, check out Our Picks. David Harsanyi in The Federalist: Mr. Harsanyi argues that those calling for tighter gun control laws do themselves a disservice by reflexively demanding changes after a mass shooting. The rhetoric is heated and may mix anger toward the incidents with prescriptive solutions, he says. Mr. Harsanyi argues that “ideological stridency and partisanship” will never appeal to gun owners, for whom each “law feels a lot like incremental steps to undermine access.” Read more » _____ Noah Rothman in Commentary: The problems Mr. Rothman sees in the liberal approach to increasing gun control include “displays of cultural hostility that masquerade as exhibitions of policy-oriented seriousness.” He holds particular contempt for “attacks on the prayerful” because, he sarcastically posits, “prayer for victims of violence is another waste of a few private minutes that could be spent crafting and passing new gun legislation.” And Mr. Rothman says that the “same failed tactics” of persuasion will not work. Read more » _____ Ben Shapiro in The Daily Wire: Among the reasons that Mr. Shapiro thinks the immediate aftermath of the shooting is a poor time to talk about gun control policy: The “motive of the shooter is still unknown,” and “how the shooter acquired his weapons is still unknown.” Absent that knowledge, Mr. Shapiro suggests now is a good time to “gather information” and “stay silent” for fear of ending up “with more heavy-handed government policy that doesn’t actually achieve the end for which it supposedly aims.” Read more » _____ German Lopez in Vox: Mr. Lopez thinks that “lawmakers can’t do anything about mass shootings without politicizing them.” The political dimensions are what allow the debate to take place. Alternately, “the best way to keep the status quo is by making sure debates about it never get off the ground.” Read more » _____ Charles P. Pierce in Esquire: There are “serious arguments about all the other parts of the Bill of Rights,” according to Mr. Pierce. From practical limits on the free speech promised in the First Amendment to the limits of the Sixth Amendment “that allows the states to poison convicts to death.” Why the discrepancy? Mr. Pierce puts it plainly: “Our leaders are afraid to tolerate limits on Second Amendment ‘freedoms.’ ” Read more » _____ Richard Wolffe in The Guardian: Mr. Wolffe vigorously argues for gun violence to be approached with the urgency of a public health issue. He says that “gun violence is not an act of nature: it’s not an unpredictable earthquake or unexpectedly severe hurricane.” And that “we don’t stop talking about air safety after a passenger jet goes down. We don’t stop talking about terrorism after another ISIS attack.” But ultimately he fears that the usually fervent interest in gun rights “trumps sanity.” Read more » _____ Esmé E. Deprez in Bloomberg: Ms. Deprez gives some historical and international context to the N.R.A.’s “decades-long winning streak, convincing courts and lawmakers to loosen gun restrictions and to prevent the passage of new ones.” Read more » _____ Want the Partisan Writing Roundup in your inbox? Sign up for the Morning Briefing Newsletter or the What We’re Reading Newsletter. Have thoughts about this collection? Email feedback to ourpicks@nytimes.com. |