Oct 17, 2018
I continue my trip with Rob from TriphacksDC - and then I meet
one of the many lobbyists who work here in the US capital.
Rob recommended me to visit The Capital. Here I heard a lot about
the history of the building. It takes an hour and is entirely
free.
Then I continued my walk with Rob this Sunday afternoon when there
was an event going on at The National Mall. We are talking about
the fact that Washington D.C. is not in any American state. Rob
believes, like many others living in this district, that this
should become the 51st state. That way the stateless district would
consist of The National Mall and the area up to The Lincoln
Memorial and the White House. So the only inhabitants of the
district would be the president and his family, while the remaining
680,000 people would live in this new state.
Rob also gives me more tips on how to "attack" Washington D.C. as a
tourist.
I meet the lobbyist, Ian Goldstein, in a park not far from The
Mall.
Just before I meet him, I'm back at the Washington Monument,
located between the Capital Building and the Lincoln Memorial. In a
large circle around this monument, there are flagpoles. I did not
speak, but I guess that there are 50 flagpoles – one for each state
in the United States.
What was unusual about this particular day was that they were all
on half-rod.
This is because this is the day after the horrific mass shooting in
Las Vegas, where a man opened fire into a crowd at a concert - with
23 full or semi-automatic weapons from 32nd floor in a high-rise
building not that far away from there.
He just fired in the crowd and killed 58 people and injured more
than 800.
He managed to fire more than 1,000 shots, and it is to date the
most deadly mass shooting done by a single person ever in the
United States.
Ian, the lobbyist, does not work with gun legislation, but he's
close to where the decisions are taken. You can hear his take on
what's going to happen now after the massacre in Las Vegas.