The Kids Have It Right

February 18, 2018

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The Kids Have It Right

The kids have it right.

It’s not a “mental health” issue. It’s an access to military-style weapons issue. There should be less access, period, full stop.

Every responsible gun owner would agree with this. And the way you know for a fact that it’s true – we have a school shooting incident every 60 hours in this country. No other developed nation has anything like this going on.

Are we to believe that this is because there are no mental health issues anywhere else?

Or – and the only plausible explanation – other countries have mental issues but do not allow an 18 year old to walk into a store and buy a weapon that can fire 45 rounds per minute, with very little vetting, no training and no restriction.

I’ve been sick to my stomach thinking about this all week. The idea that because we can’t prevent all gun violence, we should not try to prevent any of it is the dumbest, most tired and dangerous argument around right now. It’s a lie that is covered in the blood of innocents. Mass shooters, who almost always tote an AR-15 or similar weapon, don’t ask you if you’re a Democrat or Republican before opening fire. And I’ll go ahead and assume that parents at both ends of the political spectrum love their children equally. So why on earth is access to military-style weapons a partisan issue?

I believe in the second amendment and the constitutional guarantee that Americans have the right to bear arms and defend themselves. But without any restriction? Should we be allowed to have rocket launchers at home? Missiles? An M1 Abrams tank? A nuclear submarine?

The NRA is not fighting for the second amendment or for responsible gun owners. The NRA is a LOBBY FOR THE GUN MANUFACTURERS and their clients want to sell high ticket-price, high margin assault weapons. So they twist the minds of Americans and corrupt the political system to conflate responsible gun ownership with a free-for-all of unchecked violence.

Kids have the right to attend school and expect some level of safety and protection from the adults whose job it is to provide that in any civil society. Parents have the right to send their kids off to school or a mall or a movie theater or a church without having to wonder, every single fucking time, whether this is the last day they’ll see them alive.

Emma Gonzales is the future of this country. She has it exactly right. When one group’s rights threaten the rights – and lives – of every other group, a reckoning is in order. If the NRA truly cared about preserving the rights of responsible gun owners, it would draw the line between the freedoms of the second amendment and absolute madness itself. It does not. This may have been the tragedy that pushed things too far. God, I hope so.

Read also:

The Only Way To Prevent Gun Violence Is To Reduce the Number of Guns (David Atkins, Washington Monthly)

Each and every time we are subjected to the same arguments, a circular merry-go-round of desperate anger from families and mainstream Americans, shocking bad faith by those who want to preserve the status quo, and callous opportunism by those trying to shoehorn their own separate issue advocacy into the discussion. The cycle of violence and reaction is a mandala of pain and futility.

And every time the bottom line is and remains the same: if you want to end gun violence, reduce the number of guns. It’s that simple. There is no other answer. The simple reason is that the only difference between America and other industrialized nations on the issues so often blamed for gun violence is access to guns.

Appeasing the Trigger Gods (Maureen Dowd, NY Times)

The Orlando shooting also provided confirmation that the emotionally stunted Trump would not be a parental healer for the country, when he tweeted congratulations to himself for predicting the shooter would have links to terrorism, rather than offering comforting words to the grieving families and friends, and to shaken Americans.

Last year, weeks after taking office, Trump signed a bill rolling back a regulation that made it harder for mentally ill people to buy guns. And a day after Wednesday’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla., by a mentally disturbed teenager with an AR-15 who killed 14 kids and three adults trying to protect the students, the president seemed unable even to utter the word “gun.” (This, even as his favorite newspaper, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, blared the headline: “MR. PRESIDENT, PLEASE ACT.”)

Florida students plea with Congress: It’s about the guns (Devlin Barrett, Washington Post)

Students of the Florida school where 17 people died last week said Sunday they will organize nationwide marches for gun control next month and try to create a “badge of shame” for politicians who take money from the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups.

'Thoughts and prayers' and fistfuls of NRA money: Why America can't control guns (a grim update) (Michael Hiltzik, LA Times)

But it's the NRA's campaign spending that almost certainly poses the biggest roadblock to legislation that would stem the tide of gun violence in America. From 2010 through 2018 thus far, the organization donated $111 million to political campaigns of federal candidates.

While Jake Novak (CNBC) makes a valid point in "Stop blaming the NRA for failed gun control efforts," he neglects the facts discussed in the articles above, and many, many others. NRA lobbying and campaign donations cannot be ignored – there's a close link between NRA-supported Congress people and their voting records. However, strong specific proposals are clearly important.