The same angry, shouty, uppity teens pointing their fingers at the NRA must have been too busy studying Constitutional law to have taken five minutes to befriend “the weird kid” when he most needed to know he wasn’t alone in this world.
No, bullying and ostracizing are not entirely to blame for the despicable massacre in Florida. No, these kids weren’t accomplices in seventeen murders. But can even one of them point to a single gracious act they extended to draw a troubled kid out of isolation?
I didn’t think so.
And that’s why I don’t want to hear from these kids their opinion on what the Founding Fathers got wrong. Yet, the same cameras that sup on the blood of murdered children now turn to these know-it-alls and grant them a voice they haven’t earned and don’t deserve. Millions of NRA members in this country study the laws and know the responsibilities of gun ownership; millions of responsible gun owners prepare to protect themselves and others. They have earned and they deserve a voice, but the legacy media won’t grant it. So let’s get realistic here:
Your children are sitting damn ducks.
Schools are already no-gun zones. And that clearly means nothing to the evil murderers who seek to destroy lives in our schools. Here’s an easy thought exercise: What would happen if, in defiance of the words “shall not be infringed,” the government managed to confiscate every firearm in the country? Then the same lunatics bent on killing kids would switch to pipe bombs and shrapnel, or acid, or Molotov cocktails and incendiaries, or pressure cookers, or automobiles, or blades. And our kids would be every bit as defenseless.
Guns are not the problem. Neither is the NRA.
The disturbed, evil, hate-filled murderers are the problem.
And blaming the NRA or screaming for gun control will do absolutely nothing to address the root of the problem. But the extremist left won’t admit this patently-obvious fact that the murderers themselves are the problem. God/goddess/flying-spaghetti-monster/science forbid these partisans ever admit that someone is different, if they cannot use that difference to put down the white male or to increase government dependence.
Look, the fact that even one more child was murdered while sitting in a (gun-free) school is disgusting, inexcusable, horrible, and an indictment of our society. But it’s not an indictment of the Congress, or of responsible gun owners, or even of the NRA. Murder is already against the law; so is battery. In fact, it was a responsible gun owner who stopped the madman who shot up First Baptist Church in Texas. And the NRA has offered training programs for schools that have wanted to protect themselves.
No, this tragedy is an indictment of the cops who stood paralyzed outside the school. This is an indictment of the FBI that didn’t follow up on legitimate warning. This is an indictment of school administrators and parents who didn’t recognize and act upon the cries for attention and help. This is an indictment of a culture that doesn’t remember what shame is.
And this is decidedly an indictment of the uppity kids—now receiving their fifteen minutes of fame—who couldn’t have been bothered to reach out to “the weird kid” when he needed them.
The mental illness that plagues these types of murderers is a medical issue, to be certain; but it is the very same generation whose most vocal members want to seize every gun that is, by definition, responsible for all of the bullying occurring in schools around the country today. So before these know-it-alls scapegoat a single responsible gun owner, they had better first address their peers who are picking on each other.
And then they should let those of us adults who take safety and security seriously enough to arm ourselves worry about how to protect them from the next generation of killers, killers who will employ weapons that are truly terrifying. I can guarantee we’ll come up with something more effective than making schools display “bomb-free zone” signs.