NYT columnist David Brooks under fire for call to ‘respect’ gun owners
New York Times columnist David Brooks has ended up in hot water on Twitter. Brooks wrote an opinion piece suggesting gun owners need to be respected following the outrage after the latest high school shooting.
In Monday’s column — entitled ‘Respect first, then gun control’ — Brooks calls for an injection of understanding, and cooperation between ‘Red America’ and the rest of the country.
“The anger inevitably gets directed at the NRA, those who support gun rights, and the politicians who refused to do anything when children die.” he writes.
"Many of us walked this emotional path.” he reminds us.
Instead Brooks asks readers, why can’t both sides just sit down and hug it out?
“So if you want to stop school shootings, it’s not enough to vent and march. It’s necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points.”, he writes.
So Brooks concludes that action will get America nowhere. What America needs, is respect — for gun owners, that is.
After all, “the people who defend gun rights believe that snobbish elites look down on their morals and want to destroy their culture.”
On Twitter, Brooks’ ambitions for bipartisan fraternity were skewered by sceptical commentators, with ‘David Brooks’ becoming a trending topic on Twitter on Tuesday.
In which David Brooks argues that when 17 people get gunned down in a high school the most important thing is to be polite and deferential https://t.co/eskBvnyZLh
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) 20 February 2018
Not to point out the GOBSMACKINGLY OBVIOUS, David Brooks- but allowing "Red America" & its politicians to lead is how we fucking got here.
— Michelle (@Eaglefly124) 20 February 2018
you (an idiot): maybe we should engage activists, mount pressure campaigns, mobilize disaffected voters David Brooks (politics genius, esq.): this reeks of Labels, I'm afraid
— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) 20 February 2018
on guns, david brooks proposes a bridge to nowhere — with lots of safe spaces along the way for gun owners to feel unthreatened while the people who don’t like being shot dead apologize for antagonizing them by advocating for life-saving policies https://t.co/D5xja7B5KY
— Philip Gourevitch (@PGourevitch) 20 February 2018
David Brooks is off point. It's not gun owners, it's the NRA who is opposing gun regulation. Most gun owners wouldn't object to background checks, assault weapon bans, etc. Gun owners are around 15% of the country population, a minority. The problem is the NRA buying politicians.
— Susana H (@shernansanz) 20 February 2018
The issue of gun legislation and culture has dominated national headlines in recent days, coming after the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on Wednesday.
Large protests took place at the weekend to demand that politicians take action to restrict guns, while President Donald Trump has signalled he may support tighter background checks on gun purchases. Alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz was armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle when he carried out the massacre which left 17 people dead and 15 others injured.
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