Greensboro truck driver and cattleman Adam Coker has officially entered the race for the 13th Congressional District seat currently held by Rep. Ted Budd. The 13th Democratic primary is shaping up as a two-way race between Coker and Greensboro philanthropist Kathy Manning
No surprise–according to the News & Record Coker “indicated that he plans to make a campaign issue out of Budd’s ownership of a Rural Hall gun shop where semi-automatic rifles like those used in recent mass shootings are sold.” No doubt Manning will do the same should she prevail in the primary.
Meanwhile, John Deem– news editor of the Statesville Landmark & Record—one of the N&R’s BH media partners (expect to see more of his columns in the N&R given last week’s layoffs of columnists Doug Clark and Susan Ladd) ponders whether or not Budd is on target with the gun issue:
Budd rightly noted that societal changes impact human behavior, and that mass shootings may be a tragic symptom of those changes.
“We have a violence problem in our society,” Budd said. “We need to do the research. Is this a video game issue? Is this a mental health issue? Is this chemicals and psychotropic drugs? Let’s take a look at the data on this.”
Yes, we absolutely should mine all the data and search relentlessly for solutions. But let’s also consider that guns are the constant in shootings, whether they are inspired by video games, triggered by mental illness or revenge, or encouraged by the influence of drugs.
Regardless of your political leanings, the most-common ingredients of a problem should be the starting point of conversation, not the end.
In this case, the commonalities are people and guns, and I don’t expect to see a human buyback program anytime soon.
Stay tuned–the mainstream media did not like Budd to begin with, and with guns (tragically) in forefront again they’re going to ramp their opposition. It will be a very interesting midterm Congressional race.
