I have been following and observing anti-Gun Violence activism on Twitter. On Martin Luther King Jr. day on April 4th, @Everytown tweeted that, “today we remember a man who understood the fierce urgency of now.” Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination reminds me of Freelon, McIlwain, and Clark’s work, “Beyond the Hashtags.” In this reading, these authors contend that the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality issues instigate public disgust and mobilization due to the graphic documentation of vicious acts of police violence against vulnerable civilians. More abstract movements, on the other hand, like Occupy Wall Street failed to effectively collectively mobilize and accomplish a plan. The argument put forth in the “Beyond the Hashtags” article is that more conceptual and less visually-provocative movements fail because immaterial notions, such as wealth inequality that was fundamental to the Occupy Movement, do not inspire a sense of urgency. @Everytown encourages us to emulate MLK Jr.’s sense of urgency to stop gun violence; Freelon, McIlwain, and Clark would contend that graphic and violent videos/photos inspire this collective resolution.
I not only have been tracking gun control outlets on Twitter, but I have also been following extremely conservative outlets like the NRA. Reading through tweets, I am reminded of Corder in his work, “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love.” The NRA, for example, has constructed its own narrative to support its ardent, ruthless protection of the second amendment (frequently tweeting #2A). Corder writes in his article that, “We are always, as the rhetorician might say, inventing the narratives that are our lives” (17). Earlier today, the NRA tweeted about Claire McCaskill, a Missourian Senator, and how she, “…turned her back on their [Missourians] freedoms by voting against Gorsuch.” The NRA is therefore creating a narrative regarding Senator McCaskill’s moral character due to her decision to vote against the conservative, Coloradoan judge for an open Supreme Court seat. Painting her as a traitor to the people of Missouri, the NRA is trying to create the narrative that Senator McCaskill is duplicitous and untrustworthy.
Recently, people have been tweeting about the man who shot himself at NRA Headquarters by accident. How’s that for irony?! The hashtags #GunSense #SafetyFirst have been erupting on my feed.