• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, September 10, 2019

A bunch of Democratic presidential hopefuls took time out from smacking each other around in their bid to win the nomination to appear in an anti-gun violence video in collaboration with the Giffords Organization.

As you probably know, former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot at a public appearance in 2011. After a slow and somewhat miraculous recovery, she and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, established the gun-violence prevention group Giffords.

This week, the group released a video with the candidates, including Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Beto O'Rouke, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Mayor Pete and a couple of others, taking turns uttering sound bites about how sucky it is that guns are wreaking such havoc in our society. They decry how wrong it is that kids today have to devote mindshare to worrying about active shooters in their schools. Of course, that's all true and very unfortunate. 

Warren must have drawn the short straw. She kicks things off by noting that “gun violence is literally life and death.” That’s just a bad piece of copywriting. It reminds me of a crime-drama spoof I recently watched, where a detective is briefing the star homicide investigator and notes the victim “kept himself to himself and was never found dead before, so this is out of character.”

Yes, gun violence is a matter of life and death. That’s not a terribly fresh insight.

But the Democrats are going to keep pushing and fighting for change and just get it done, according to the video participants.

Well, I hope so. It sure ain’t going to happen while the current Tweeter In Chief is in office.

And, it also isn’t going to happen unless the Dems do a clean sweep and win the big prize along with both houses.

Let’s dream big.