Parkland - Dave Cullen Page 0,41

by driving home the message of why the background check system is so ineffective: it was deliberately undermined by the NRA. “I’m sure very few people are aware of the fact that the ATF still does its background checks from paper records located in a building in West Virginia,” Professor Spitzer said. “They were barred from computerizing their records back in the 1980s by pressure from the NRA written into legislation. When I repeat that now, reporters are kind of shocked, asking, ‘Is that really true? How could that be true? No computers?’”

Voters don’t understand this, Spitzer said. They will be outraged once someone demonstrates that effectively.

The same concept applies to demand three, Spitzer said, though its potential is somewhat less explosive. It’s hard to find people against studying an issue. Of course most voters would support study, and be disgusted to learn that was forbidden—though it won’t bring them out to the polls. It’s vital that it be written into legislation, though, so that as the movement succeeds in passing legislation, the system can be studied as it evolves. Various changes will prove more and less effective than anticipated. The ability to study what we’re doing will be critical for long-term success. That’s pretty obvious—unless your goal is undermining that success.

The sticky item on that list was banning semiautomatic rifles, Spitzer said. “It’s a pretty hot gun issue to touch. There is support for it, candidates have campaigned on it, including some former military candidates. But . . .” That one really depended on the district, he said. You could run on it in urban areas, but it would be tricky in a lot of swing districts. Candidates really have to read their district on that one. There was movement on semiautomatics, though, Spitzer said, even before Parkland. “Right now there actually is majority support for restricting or banning assault weapons and that was not the case ten years ago. That’s kind of a marker of the outer edge of policy ideas that can win majority support.”

Background checks were the no-brainer, Spitzer said. “It’s low-hanging fruit. Ninety percent of Americans consistently support uniform background checks, as do eighty percent of gun owners. So it’s practically universal support. It’s hard to get ninety percent support for anything in America.”

Spitzer had a few suggestions for candidates beyond the MFOL demands. “I would talk about a terrorist watch list. I would talk about doing a better job of getting information about people who have mental illnesses, because that’s been a big problem. And that’s also something that everybody agrees on, and it’s something you can explain. And that would be plenty. I think those three things alone would be plenty in a campaign.”

MFOL had an agenda now, and was sizing up its adversary. The NRA closely guards its membership data, but it claims nearly five million members—“And David Hogg is three of them,” Jackie took to telling audiences later. “Lots of people like to buy us memberships.” They doubted the five million figure, but if accurate, it represents just 1.5 percent of the population. Yet the NRA has succeeded by turning out reliable single-issue voters to swing close elections, with no countervailing force. Sizable majorities favor gun reform, but progressives never vote on guns. That asymmetry allows a tiny minority to consistently defeat huge majorities, or to convince politicians they will. The NRA’s aura of invincibility goes largely untested, because officials so rarely risk opposing it, even on trivial matters. Every “wrong” vote, even for legislation backed by solid majorities of gun owners, chips away at a legislator’s NRA score, which can energize a primary opponent.

MFOL had to be that countervailing force. They had to demonstrate they could match the NRA vote for vote. Optimally, exceed it. They set their sights on November, to prove to an audience of 435 that it’s riskier to oppose them than the NRA. They saw the number one battleground as the House of Representatives. They had to overturn some seats.

3

Most of the MFOL kids were too young to vote. They couldn’t even check into a hotel room, and a parent or two had to chaperone them on every trip. There were a lot of trips. Jackie Corin estimated she had logged thirty thousand miles or more that spring, meeting with school groups, legislators, academics, and activists, traveling as far as a conference in Kenya. She wasn’t even the most frequent flier—that would be David, though a dozen of them were practically living on the road. They