...and nobody cared.
Before you get yourself into a tizzy over the title and subtitle, just know that this was the most toned down version of it. I’m sure some of you do care about these easily-triggered, pubescent know-it-alls and their brilliant insight into how the real world works. Even if I think it’s sad that you care so much about the opinions from their not-fully-formed brains, I do acknowledge that at least some people did care about the protests this past weekend.
Now, with that out of the way...
So much idiocy, so little time.
The knee-jerk reaction to these mass shootings is almost always the same: “BAN THE MURDERER’S TOOL!” While it may seem like a good step, there’s no evidence that it actually prevents more murders.
But let’s assume that creating a new law making it more difficult to get a certain tool could have an effect on whether or not mass killings would consequently be curbed to a noticeable degree. There’s now a new law on the books and it is now up to law enforcement to enforce that law. Everything is good and everyone is much safer now, right?
Not exactly.
In the case of the most recent school shooting that has caused this manufactured “political movement,” local and federal law enforcement already knew about this particular killer. They knew he was potentially dangerous. They had received tips about his activity both online and in real life. They had investigated those tips and other complaints many times over a period of many years. The FBI even received a tip that the shooter was potentially planning to conduct his own school massacre a month before he carried out the act.
Law enforcement did nothing to prevent it.
While the shooting was active and students were being murdered inside the school, local law enforcement stood outside and did nothing. Not only did local law enforcement not enter the building to confront the active shooter – as is standard operating procedure for active shooter scenarios – but they even failed to form a secure perimeter and apprehend the shooter once the incident was over.
It was not until over an hour later that the shooter was confronted and arrested by a police officer...two miles from the school, after he had walked to Walmart, purchased a soda, and then went to a McDonald’s.
How would more laws have prevented any of this from happening?
Making threats to harm or kill others is already illegal. Having a gun at a school is already illegal. Murder is already illegal.
At the point that someone decides they’re going to murder others, what effect will a law about the tool being used have on their decision-making process? Would a mass murderer care that an illegal weapons charge will be added to their list of crimes? If they also plan on killing themselves in the process, as most of them do, what difference does it make to them? Raising the age minimum for gun ownership or making a certain type of gun illegal will simply add to the number of laws that a murderer will undoubtedly break.
Laws do not make actions impossible. They only identify what act is or is not legal and they prescribe punishment for committing the act. A criminal that doesn’t care about the punishment won’t care about the law. There must be another viable solution to realistically protect individuals from harm.
And let’s not forget that it’s not only the “evil assault rifle” that can be used or that can inflict a great deal of harm and casualties. In 2007, a senior student at Virginia Tech killed 32 people...
With pistols.
What were these “evil assault weapons” that caused such mass destruction? One was a 9mm Glock. The other was a Walther P22 – a .22 caliber pistol, which is the most popular and one of the smallest calibers commercially available.
So what would an “assault rifle” ban have done for the Virginia Tech victims? What would it do for future potential victims of a mass shooting perpetrated by a deranged murderer?
If you think that another shiny new law will keep everyone safe, then – quite frankly – you’re an idiot.
Is deferring responsibility the answer?
So we have a bunch of teenagers protesting guns and violence and offering up suggestions on how to make themselves safer at school. It’s cute to see these kids with such confidence that they have all of the answers, but to have adults actually entertain their ignorant “solutions” is simply beyond comprehension. It’s particularly disturbing given that the “solutions” offered are so tragically inept. Emotional ranting always seems to supplant any sense of reason and there’s never any indication that politicians actually care about results.
After all...you can never let a good crisis go to waste, right?
But what I really find disgusting in all of this is that everyone on the “let’s ban all the things!” side of the debate seems to be completely content with leaving children entirely at the mercy of rampaging murderers.
They’re fine with telling kids to just cower in the corner of their classroom until the perpetrator bursts through the door and starts slaughtering them.
They’re fine with telling teachers that faculty is too irresponsible and untrustworthy to even have the chance to protect their children in an active shooter scenario.
They’re fine with telling private security firms or even law enforcement that it’s too dangerous or that they’re too incompetent to be trusted with school security. (I may actually agree with them on the latter about law enforcement, given the recent events at Parkland.)
Instead of acknowledging the one thing that remains true – which is that confronting a shooter and returning fire usually ends the assault – they’d rather entertain the moronic ideas of screeching, hormone-driven half-wits. The so-called “adults” in this debate are content with handing over their responsibilities as parents and protectors of their children to the absolute cowards in politics and law enforcement that have done NOTHING to actually protect anyone from gun violence.
Far too many people continue to defer their own responsibility of self-defense and self-preservation and the protection of their own families to third parties and incompetents, which are usually one and the same if that third party is the government.
There’s the old saying that goes, “When seconds count, police are only minutes away.”
And how sad is it that this undeniable fact continues to go unacknowledged by people who claim to care so much about safety and their children? How much more embarrassing can it be to continue asking for that third-party protection when they continually fail to prevent crimes – even when these trusted third parties cower outside the building when at the scene of an active school shooting?
So no, I’m not buying this nonsense about simply “wanting to protect children.” The parents, students, teachers, politicians, and pundits who keep proclaiming that this is their goal are utterly full of shit – either through willful deceit or willful ignorance.
When it comes to protecting your own life, there is only one person who has the best means of providing that protection...and that is you. You can choose to be your own protector or you can choose to relinquish that responsibility to someone else who may or may not be willing or able to provide protection for you, but you can’t make that choice for another individual and you cannot control how your third-party protectors respond when you need protection.
This is how responsibility and human behavior works in the real world. This is how individual rights work in the real world.
You can choose to deny this reality and you can cry and clamor for laws to pawn that responsibility off, but make no mistake about it – this denial and deferment will not resolve anything related to safety and gun violence.
But looking at the bright side...
There are some valuable lessons to be learned from all of this ill-conceived whining and protesting, so the teachable moment has not yet been entirely lost.
The first thing that came to mind as a positive outcome when these protests began was that the students were at least getting out of the classroom. I don’t believe that there’s much more good that can be done than keeping kids out of their school environment as much as possible. The school systems in the United States are atrocious, especially public schools.
Even if these students are acting out, like good little government-brainwashed adolescents, they’re at least not being filled with another dose of stupidity in class. The more days they miss due to walk-outs and other protests, the less bullshit they’ll absorb from the government-approved curriculum.
In Florida, the government has made another acknowledgement about what the age of adulthood should be. This is a valuable second lesson.
Whether intentional or not, the state has again agreed that actual adulthood may begin later than previously thought. Now you must be 21 in order to purchase a firearm, which is in line with the drinking age (21), purchasing recreational marijuana (21 in most places), staying on your parents’ health care coverage (26), industry standards of businesses for things like car rentals (21), and even tougher regulations and laws for credit cards, which make it harder for people under 21 to get them.
If only we can apply the same reasoning to things like the voting age, we may all be better off.
And while I’m on that subject, I’d just like to mention that politicians who are actually listening to the uninformed rantings of attention-seeking teens, their charlatan adult supporters, and the agenda-driven media pundits, are nothing but morally-depraved and/or logically-impaired dupes and cowards. If threats of voting from a shrieking teenager scares you, you’re an imbecile. We all know that teens don’t turn out to vote. They just literally can’t even, especially with all of their selfies that need to be taken and uploaded to social media every 15 minutes.
Voting is such a drag. That’s what old people do. The real revolution takes place on Instagram. Everyone knows this.
Finally, the best lesson to be learned from all of this is the one that is learned by the most vocal students themselves: the Parkland protesters.
While these students are out there demanding that the government impose new laws and regulations on everyone because of the act of one person, their own school administrators decided to impose new rules on all high school students because of the actions of a person who wasn’t even a student at their school. And how are these teens reacting to this news?
They’re upset about it, of course.
This is both the ultimate hypocrisy of these students and the sweet irony of reaping what you sow. It’s the definitive lesson of government in action and these students are lucky to learn it early in life. The lesson is this:
When you ask for more government, you shall receive more government.
The question is – will anyone learn this lesson or will they continue down the same path of obliviousness? Will they be able to identify the source of their own contradictions, grief, or oppression, or will they once again fail to make the association? They most likely won’t comprehend what’s happening, but we can at least remain hopeful for a select few.
Closing Thoughts
This entire situation and debate once again fails the test of reason. What may have begun as genuine concerns over safety has quickly become another political charade of frauds and suckers.
The “solutions” being thrown around by many of these political swindlers do nothing to actually protect individuals from harm. They’re feel-good measures that address emotionally-charged nincompoops who lack both insight and foresight.
When it comes to protecting children – especially your own – it should be expected that adults and parents would have more to offer than “Ban the guns!” or “Make murder more illegal!” If you’re not considering real solutions that actually address stopping an active shooter as quickly as possible, then you’re just another useful idiot. And “real solutions” involve those that can eliminate the threat as it happens, not pretending that laws and posted signs on the premises of a school or any other property will be enough to stop a crazed killer.
Parents need to make a choice about their children’s safety. They can continue sending their children to potential slaughter by pretending that advertised gun-free zones are safe or they can use their brains for once and try accepting some responsibility as parents.
One of these things can work out in the end. The other is nothing but a pure gamble with the lives of your children on the line.
The results are in. Gun-free zones have failed. Law enforcement responses have failed. Banning tools doesn’t work. Children are being murdered.
