Portside

There is a long tradition in this country of children—primarily in rural areas—learning to shoot at a young age. But there is a point where all reasonable people need to admit that a kid is too young to own and/or shoot a real rifle that shoots real bullets. Four years old—the age the Kentucky boy who shot his 2-year-old sister apparently was when he received a Crickett rifle as a gift—is way, way too young.

Mueller dud; Reparations poll; Betocare; Power of the NRA; Trump, McCain and MIAs; Hudson Yards horrorshow; Sneak peek at Term 2

After a significant year for the gun control movement in 2018, momentum for stricter firearms laws in states across the country likely will accelerate this year.

I have had bursts of enthusiasm before when women marched for their rights, masses mobilized against war, and many stepped up to say no to police violence and mass incarceration, I was touched emotionally even more this time around, by several features of this new movement.

Reader Comments: Nation Demands Gun Control - Parkland Student Manifesto; Youth of Color Demand to be Heard; 2018 Elections; Bolton and War Preparations; Vietnam War; Puerto Rico; Unions: What Now; Europe-Lessons from Center-Left Collapse; May Day in Chicago; Announcements; and more...

Rebuilding the democratic infrastructure is too important to leave up to the consultocracy. Mobilizers only turn out people with whom they agree. Organizers engage these people in reaching out to other people with whom they don’t agree.

Reader Comments: Slavery and Modern Capitalism; Stopping Gun Violence, Stopping the NRA; PA18; West Virginia Teachers; Puerto Rico - Crisis Deepens; Viola Desmond; Venezuela; Soviet Union, Fight Against Hitler...and Stalin; My Lai: Never Again; Global Call for Peace; and more...

Reader Comments: Parkland vs. NRA; Trump's Arming of Teachers - Not; Criticism of Pledge to Transform the Resistance, and America; Labor - War on Workers, Labor in the 70s, Janus, West Virginia Teachers on Strike; Science; Sex and Drugs; I AM 2018 - The Fight Continues - Memphis - April 2 - 4; and more.....