Seeing as how I un-retired to motivate some phone calls for gun control, I should note that Obama is using that bully pulpit for all it’s worth to get a bill passed.
Everyone in Congress thinks that, polls be damned, everyone in America hates gun control. They think this because Rush Limbaugh and the NRA get their people misinformed, angry and on the phone. Representative democracy serves people who make noise by design. If you want representation then pick up the phone and ask for it.
Q: My Republican is an idiot. Should I phone him or her?
A: Yes.
Q: Even Ted Cruz?
A: Yes goddamit, even Ted Cruz. Full court press. Now git.
Find your Congressperson and Senator here.
Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Guide for first timers below the jump.
(1) Use a phone. Email has nigh on zero impact. Trust me on this. Letter mail gets read and in fact has the most impact of all, but you don’t have time. Reach the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121 .
(2) Remember, this person works for you. You pay his or her salary and you voted for them. You’re the boss here, or at least one of them, and it’s they who should worry about what you think of them.
(3) Identify your name and the town or neighborhood where you live zip code. If you are not a constituent don’t bother. Since you guys never listen to me, at least google a zip code in the appropriate district before you call.
(4) State the issue. Right now the main pressure point is universal background checks and high-capacity magazines. You can voice support for an assault weapons ban or any other thing that comes to mind (hell, ask for a universal gun ban if you feel Overtonnish) but the first two are the most likely to happen.
(5) How strongly do you feel? Don’t apologize about feeling passionate or pissed off. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. However, keep in mind that teabaggers threaten the apocalypse over everything. Interns get jaded pretty fast when call volume is high. Polite but firm is the way to go.
Just Some Fuckhead
You did not. You never retired. You just got really fucking lazy.
jeffreyw
log in to fywp
amk
Amen.
Schlemizel
While I don’t imagine I need to call Ellison of Franken I will. Klobuchars, I think is also on the right side but it will be interesting to hear what her office will tell me if I don’t tell them what I think first.
Saint Timonious
Call the toll free number:
Call 1-800-962-3524, and then ask for a particular legislator
TriassicSands
Even Cruz?
Especially Cruz and his ilk. Make it harder for them to lie.
aimai
I heard an amazing NPR piece this morning about how H and R block is, essentially, push poll style advertising to frighten people enough to pay to have their taxes done. What is the hook? “The ACA will make filing your taxes very difficult. New issues arise because of the ACA!” The colorado NPR affiliate who heard this did hteir own story interviwing the head of H and R Block who admitted that this was completely false. There was nothing new about the aCA for your taxes this year. The ACA would not affect your taxes at all. Then they interviewed a health care group who supports the ACA who pointed out, delictely, that its precisely because business groups like H and R Block are scaremongering that people know so little about the ACA and are so fearful. But NPR was too polite to draw the conclusion or to look at the wider picture and my point here, and I do have one, is that its ditto for guns.
The average citizen in bomabarded with false information, including information on what other people in their social circle think about a public policy issue. This is one reason, I believe, that little gestures like posting support for a position on FB (which I don’t have, actually) may be part of turning the tide for people and helping make people comfortable advocating for positions they hold.
Schlemizel
@aimai:
I heard that!
A few years back the CEO of H&R made a very positive statement about never entering the tax return loan business. He admitted it was a big money maker but that it was immoral. I was very impressed. Then, a couple years later the company succumbed and started offering instant refund loans like the worst of them did.
Now this stunt. They have gone from a company I thought highly of to just another scum sucking bottom feeder.
Schlemizel
3 for 3 from my delegation!
Now its just a matter of time to see how badly the Dems disappoint me on this issue B-{D
gogol's wife
Great speech by Obama. I just called my two senators for the hundredth time to thank them for being on the right side of this issue.
ruemara
Call because of this. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/27/1780641/tuscon-gun-giveaway/
Xecky Gilchrist
Nice try, Obummer, but none of this means anything because of DR0NZ.
Del
I’ve never thought that the strength of the Right was their ability to get voters to pester politicians. No, it’s the ability to get their base pissed off and at the voting booth while they’re busy buying the politicians directly. I know a lot of you disagree but I can’t help but look at the news and the polls and think that calling a phonebank is about as effective as praying for rain. It makes people feel like they’re doing something, pretty much the equivalent of sending a strongly worded email letter that gets filtered out by their spam algorithms without ever being read..
Politicians aren’t complete idiots (well, most of them), they know how to analyze polling data. They know what their constituents want. The problem is that “the people”=/=”their constituents”. Unless you can either fund their election or fund their opponent they don’t really do much more than give you lip service. Case in point? Filibuster reform (to a limited extent). CISPA. Gun Reform. Bank Bailouts. The Tax the Rich vs Gut the Poor fight. These are all things that people want changed but that, somehow, there’s never the political will to fight against. The politicians aren’t deaf, they aren’t cowards, they’re listening to their real constituents.
Eh…. I think I need to stop typing and go drink some coffee. It’s too early to be this cranky.
El Tiburon
Yep, I’m going there.
Let’s see, Obama is using the bully-pulpit on an issue he cares about EVEN though the votes aren’t there…yet.
But but but when the issue was the public option, all we heard was: THE FUCKING VOTES AREN’T THERE AND WHAT GOOD IS THE BULLY PULPIT?!?
Just saying.
Ruckus
@Del:
I have a sneaky suspicion that you are correct. At least for the rethugs. Oh and a lot of dems. OK so most all of them then.
And by the way it is never too early to be cranky about people who draw a salary from you to be a representative for you and who absolutely don’t represent you or anyone you know.
Keith G
I am going to call both of my guys, Cornyn and Cruz, and ask them why they think it is okay to risk the lives of Texas police officers. The man who shot the Colorado official also shot a Texas sheriff. He got a gun he used the only way he could, through a straw purchase. The legislation that both Cornyn and Cruz oppose increased sanctions against straw purchases. Their indifference attacks the safety of those who serve.
Sly
Just don’t do it like this jackass.
shortstop
@Sly: Man, he’s really let himself go since his Partridge Family days, huh?
MomSense
My Rep is on board with the works in terms of gun violence prevention.
My Senators, not so much. Background checks ayuh. “Assault Weapons” ban–nope. Will keep working on them.
MomSense
@El Tiburon:
Ok, he did use the bully pulpit on health care and the public option until about August of that year when we learned through polling that the more he said about it, the worse it got in terms of public approval. So he continued to work behind the scenes on health care reform and the public option.
I will tell you from an extended conversation that I had with Sen. Snowe–the public option was dead on the Senate Finance Committee. Snowe was actually trying to keep it alive with an incredibly complicated public option of her own. Baucus was not a supporter. It would not have done much. Also, even the version of the public option that passed the House would not have done much either because even the house couldn’t pass a public option that tied reimbursement rates to Medicare rates.
I worked extensively on this legislation. The public option was not going to do that much. Expansion of Medicaid, and the Medical Loss Ratio are far more important. I will also note that the same insurance (Federal Employees Benefit Plan) will be available to everyone on the exchanges. This is a good thing!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
We’re seeing quite a bit of this ad, locally. I’m cautiously optimistic that it had an impact on Hagan finally stating a position.
Tokyokie
OK, I tried weighing in with my congressional reps. When I tried contacting Kay Granger’s D.C. office, I got a telephone tree asking whether I was calling about a D.C. or a Maryland office, and then when I selected the D.C. office, I was told to call 911 if it were a life-threatening emergency. Or some such. I called her local office instead and left a message. Tried Ted Cruz, and his voicemail inbox was already full. Friggin wanker. I did leave a message for John Cornyn, which I’m sure will cause him to see the light.
mclaren
Oh come on, firebaggers, everyone knows the president of the united states doesn’t really have a “bully pulpit.” The president is just a helpless insect who flails like an impotent diatom in the face of the mighty power of congress and the courts.
That’s why the president of the united states can lay waste entire nations by ordering an invasion: because he’s so utterly helpless.
elftx
Once a spoon is labeled an assault weapon, I will be against Gun Control. Until then, I am for it.
DavidTC
Every week, I go out to karaoke and hang out with some people I know from volunteering at a theatre, and hang out with the most conservative _sane_ person I know. (I.e., he hasn’t fallen down the rabbit-hole of ranting about nonsense.) For reference, I live in Georgia.
We don’t discuss politics there, possibly because we know it would result in disagreements and we’re just there for a good time, but if I’d been asked to describe him politically, it would be right smack in the middle of the Republican party. (_Except_ perhaps not very anti-gay, and that solely because he’s interacted too much with theatre folk, mainly through his wife who is there to sing karaoke, and actually knows some gay people.)
This man hunts, and tells some pretty funny hunting stories. He was in the military, and his son is now in the military.
He missed the week after the the Newtown attack, but the week after that, he showed up, and _started talking about how he wants gun control_. Again, we _don’t_ normally talk politics, but he felt it was important to tell people that he _wanted_ universal background checks, and he wanted limiters on magazine sizes, and then he started talking about if he could figure out some way to define those sort of assault weapons, without touching hunting weapons, he’d be in favor of banning them.
I, cautiously, pointed out that most gun crime actually happens with handguns, and that’s really what we need to do something about, and he instantly agreed with that.
Really, living in Georgia, I hear a lot of background conservative rumbling from people who assume that everyone is conservative. Once you actually filter out the two or three people I know who’ve drank the Kool-Aid and post fake pictures of Obama’s college ID one Facebook, once you get rid of those people, I don’t hear _anyone_ complaining about this attempt at gun control. (Unlike the uninformed complaints about health reform, or references to Benghazi, or whatever.)