Targets

In the two months since the Florida school shooting, and the remarkable show of leadership being shown by the surviving students of that shooting, the way that many in the media have treated these students has been, to say the least, mesmerizing.  “Who are these kids? Why do they have the audacity to take on the National Rifle Association, who has so many politicians in its back pocket that they may as well be a fifth branch of government?  Who do THEY think they are? Aren’t they out of their lane?  How dare they?” - these are among the questions raised. 

The NRA and their pawns have run into an unusual level of resistance to their usual methods of pushing back against criticism, which involve personal attacks against their critics, threats (including death) against the same, and other sordid methods.   These are not your “usual” band of grieving parents - they are the kids themselves, and these tactics against kids is frowned upon (to say the least) in this society.   Not that they don’t try - there are memes going around about David Hogg being “fake”, that he wasn’t really there during the shooting and lied about it, that Emma Gonzalez is a professional actress, that they are all “crisis actors”, etc. etc. etc.   I would expect this kind of tar-and-feather job to come from the NRA’s minions, but I’m finding it surprising that it’s also coming from the further elements of the left.  I’ll get to the left’s over-the-shark moment shortly.

While I have seen a few pictures of people holding signs saying “Yes, We Are Here To Take Your Guns”, and other memes of the sort, I don’t think that taking all guns is the goal here - as much as the NRA would want us to believe otherwise.  What is being demanded here is much of the same thing that has been demanded for decades: outlawing military-style assault weapons, universal background checks, age limits - in other words, REGULATION.   AR-15s, Tech 9s, AK-47s, and other assault weapons have no business on the streets, and neither do they have any business in the hands of civilians or most cops (save for SWAT teams).   In some countries where you do see them (e.g. Switzerland - an example the NRA likes to trot out), it is only because those weapons are highly regulated and because the citizens of such countries also serve as the “well-regulated militia”, to quote the first part of the Second Amendment.   

What about the left buying into the media’s pillorying of the student leaders?  In segments of the far left, there is a common belief (which holds some merit) that the government no longer represents the citizens, that the government is currently in the final stages of metamorphosis into a corporate fascist regime, that the only check we’ll have against the government is to be armed, with few limits to access to whatever weapon you choose.   And voting? Votes don’t count when the machines and the means of voting are owned by private interests with vested interests in certain outcomes.  So, these factions within the left largely bought the NRA’s primary calling card insofar as weapons access.  

Let’s cut right to the chase: everything we’re hearing about the individual students and whether or not they are genuine (I believe they are), everything that we’re hearing about them being “pawns” of their parents or elements such as the Democratic Party, the monetary support behind the March For Our Lives, etc. etc. etc., are mere DISTRACTIONS from the main point: that military-style assault weapons HAVE NO PLACE ON OUR STREETS, OR IN THE HANDS OF THOSE NOT TRAINED TO USE THEM.  I include civilians and beat cops (non-SWAT) in this prohibition.  I have no problem with hunters using firearms designed for that purpose, and if you need a firearm for personal protection in your home and can demonstrate that you know how to and when to use it (and when NOT to use it), then I’m OK with that.   Licensing should also not be a problem for those who say they are truly sincere about gun safety - we license people to drive after they demonstrate proficiency behind the wheel, and as we all know, a car or truck can be as deadly as a firearm in terms of the lives they take on our roads.   Military-style assault weapons only belong in the hands of two entities: the MILITARY, and the specially-trained members of our SWAT and other police tactical teams.  

As for those who talk about how civilian firearms serve as a check against government tyranny: any kind of arsenal you think you can build up will be CRUSHED LIKE A BUG when put up against the equipment and training of our armed forces.   A lot of the right-wing militia groups we’ve heard about in the Pacific Northwest and Upper Midwest subscribe to the idea of civilian armaments being a check on government power - a notion that in a dark way, makes me laugh.  I would never condone violence against anybody or anything unless I, my family, or the country was directly attacked. However, if one these groups decided to try it, it wouldn’t take a phalanx of soldiers to take them out.   A small special forces unit could handle it - stealthily, quickly, and probably without much (if any) resistance.

So I’m not asking for any kind of outright firearms ban, and I don’t think the majority of the country is, either.  We’re asking for SANE, COMMON-SENSE FIREARM REGULATION - regulation which is, by the way, NOT PROHIBITED BY THE SECOND AMENDMENT, which can be proven by the Brady Bill surviving most of it’s constitutional challenges brought by the NRA.  

We should have solved this issue decades ago - before the Columbine Massacre, before Sandy Hook, before the Pulse nightclub, and certainly, before Stoneman Douglas.   I absolutely APPLAUD the students leading this push, and it’s only right they do since it is they who are targeted - they have more skin in this game than anybody else.   Let them speak out.  Let them get out front.  

And let us have their backs.