The Minnesota Legislature has a High School Page program. They’ve been running it for decades. Each member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, from across the state (distributed uniformly by population density) brings in a page.

One day I was at an organizing and fund raising event for the opposition to the Minnesota Marriage Amendment. This was a constitutional amendment proposed to make only “one man, one woman” marriage legal, at the constitutional level, in this state. A senior member of the legislature was there, and she told us about the page program. She noted that a poll had been done across the pages about various issues, including a question asking their position on the marriage amendment.

Remember, these are high school students, all too young to vote, but since time marches forward most of the time, eligible to vote in a year or two. Remember that this is students from all across the states. The spawn of lefty liberals from South Minneapolis, the spawn of Suburban Priv, the spawn of right wing Trump-loving (had Trump existed yet) farmers from corn country.

What was their preference as a group, with respect to the marriage amendment? 100% against.

“They are coming for us,” the senior representative said. “Doesn’t matter what the Legislature thinks now. This is going to change everything.”

My second favorite story: A young woman from Parkland High School speaking at a public rally in Tallahassee.

“Soon we will be able to vote. And we will vote you out.”

Dear NRA supported politicians. They are coming for you. Might as well step aside now.

But I digress.

You need to do this before any upcoming elections. Find out who is

on the ballot has a record of opposing guns vs. who has a record of supporting guns, and vote against the gun supporters and for the gun opposers.

I made a list of current members of the Minnesota US Congressional delegation, and put it at the top of the post, with relevant information. I also looked some details up from HERE and HERE.

In a recent rating of recent and current members of the Minnesota House delegation, the NRA gave Rick Nolan, Keith Ellison, and Betty McCollum the grade of “F” and none of these three lawmakers have taken money from them.

Collin Peterson took $2,500 bucks from the NRA, Michele Bachmann took $3,500, Erik Paulson took 2,250, John Kline $2,500, and Tim Walz took $2,000. They all got a rating of “A” from the NRA.

Notice that party lines are being crossed here.

During the recent congressional session, Congresspersons Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison supported zero bills that support guns, but have supported 14 gun control bills.

Richard Nolan has supported one gun control bill.

Al Franken has supported two gun control bills.

Amy Klobuchar has supported two gun control bills.

Those are the clear good guys in Congress from Minnesota. But you might ask why the great variation in number of bills?

Congressman Erik Paulsen has supported one gun rights bill and has not supported any gun control bills. Collin Peterson has supported three gun rights bills and zero gun control bills. Tom Emmer has supported zero gun control bills and five gun rights bills. John Kline has supported a whopping nine gun rights bills and zero gun control bills.

But I digress.

You need to do this before any upcoming elections. Find out who on the ballot has a record of opposing guns vs. who has a record of supporting guns, and vote against the gun supporters and for the gun opposers.

I made a list of current members of the Minnesota US Congressional delegation, and put it at the top of the post, with relevant information. I also looked some details up from HERE and HERE.

In a recent rating of recent and current members of the Minnesota House delegation, the NRA gave Rick Nolan, Keith Ellison, and Betty McCollum the grade of “F” and none of these three lawmakers have taken money from them.

Collin Peterson took $2,500 bucks from the NRA, Michele Bachmann took $3,500, Erik Paulson took 2,250, John Kline $2,500, and Tim Walz took $2,000. They all got a rating of “A” from the NRA.

Notice that party lines are being crossed here.

During the recent congressional session, Congresspersons Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison supported zero bills that support guns, but have supported 14 gun control bills.

Richard Nolan has supported one gun control bill.

Al Franken has supported two gun control bills.

Amy Klobuchar has supported two gun control bills.

Those are the clear good guys in Congress from Minnesota. But you might ask why the great variation in number of bills?

Congressman Erik Paulsen has supported one gun rights bill and has not supported any gun control bills. Collin Peterson has supported three gun rights bills and zero gun control bills. Tom Emmer has supported zero gun control bills and five gun rights bills. John Kline has supported a whopping nine gun rights bills and zero gun control bills.

But anyone with 2+ neurons to rub together and who has not been living in a cave for the last 30 years knows the exact meaning of “clenched fist” and “I’m freedom’s safest place [gasp]” against the propaganda spread by the (here’s the part about the Jews) entertainment industry about how “them,” “them,” “them,” and “them” (insert visuals of uppity black people).

I’m not going to link to that appalling ad. But it has been described as

a … propaganda video disguised as a recruitment ad that takes aim at the Black Lives Matter movement and uses lies in order to whip its supporters into a frenzy and encourage them to take up arms to protect themselves from a supposed enemy.

As activist Deray McKesson notes, “If I made a video like this, I’d be in jail.”

Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, Dignity and Power Now, The Reverence Project, RISIST, and Defend Movement produced the following powerful and true video in response to the NRA’s call to White Supremacy.

Don’t just watch part of it, watch the whole thing. It has a structure you do not want to miss.

Anyway, I will write something about Newtown. The timing strikes a bit close to home for me, as someone not affected at all, in ways that are true for many others. I’ve got kids in school or going soon enough. My daughter lost a classmate a number of months ago to gun violence, and my wife lost a student this week in the same way; A few years ago, a few blocks away a gun nut killed a teenager in what was essentially an ambush, and a few weeks ago, another gun nut a couple of towns over executed two teenagers in a similar situation. (The former was lauded as a hero, the latter will go on trial for murder.)

But even that amounts to nothing compared to what many people face every day. We are a heavily armed society and we resort to guns too easily.

At this point, I just wanted to point out two sets of prior blog posts on gun ownership and related issues, one here and one on the X Blog:

Scienceblogs posts on firearms

X Blog posts on firearms

My opinion about guns has not changed, but my preferred strategy to deal with the problem has. That’s been coming for a while. Newtown is just one more last straw in a series of many.

The identities of the two ninth-grade students found dead in a Lakeland park were released Wednesday, and authorities said they were both shot in what appears to be a case involving suicide.

…

Deputies found the two Tuesday evening “on the ground with apparent gunshot wounds,” the sheriff said in a news release. Deputies recovered “a long-barreled weapon” near one of the bodies, he said.

strib

Here‘s the facebook page related to their death.