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Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Gun debate could break U.S., conservative columnist says

More than two weeks after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the public debate about gun rights is still at a fever pitch. "This divide won’t go away, and it has the potential to break us as a nation," conservative David French writes for National Review.

The debate goes way past gun control, French writes. It's just one part of the growing cultural divide between urban liberals and rural conservatives. Both sides are sincere and have legitimate concerns, but they must stop demonizing each other and try for extra charity and empathy in public debate, if they want to keep America strong.

"It takes more than a constitution or a government to hold a nation together. The ties that bind us as Americans are strong and durable, but the great challenges that formed them are receding into the past. Geographic differences create cultural differences, and cultural differences hasten ever-greater geographic change. Like clusters with like, and it results in the fury we saw last night, when one of the bluest communities in America vented its rage at the red emissaries in their midst," French writes of the Feb. 21 CNN town hall meeting on gun violence. "A nation cannot endure forever when its people are consumed with such hate."

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