Last week a former student brought an assault rifle to his school in Parkland Florida and murdered seventeen people.
In 2012, a gunman, using an assault rifle, killed twenty children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
In 1999, two students murdered twelve students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado armed with an assault rifle and a sawed off shotgun.
Last year a gunman opened fire at a concert in Las Vegas from a hotel room high above the concert venue. He used an assault rifle that had been converted to fully automatic, by using a “bump stock.”
He killed fifty-eight people and injured eight hundred fifty-one more.
In 2016, a gunman massacred forty-nine people and injured fifty-eight more at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida using an assault rifle and a semi-automatic pistol.
I could go on and on chronicling these episodes and totaling up the dead and injured.
In the wake of these massacres, Congress has taken no action to place any restrictions on these deadly weapons.
Indeed, it was unable to muster the courage to outlaw “bump stocks,” the device that allows a shooter to convert a semi-automatic rifle to fully automatic, as the shooter in Las Vegas did.
In the days following this latest carnage in Parkland, Florida, the best the politicians have been able to offer is their” thoughts and prayers.”
Trump’s weasel, Paul Ryan, thinks the best remedy to prevent a reoccurrence is “mental health treatment.”
The students who survived the attack at Parkland have vowed to confront the lack of action both by the Congress and the Florida State government.
I hope they are successful but I’m not optimistic.
The National Rifle Association, which is silent for the moment, owns both, lock, stock and barrel.
The NRA has spent over twenty-seven million dollars in support of U.S. Senators who opposed background checks for firearm purchasers.
Nine Senators, alone, received over twenty-two million of those funds.
Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, received $ 1,262 189.00.
Roy Blunt, Republican from Missouri, received $ 1, 433,952.00.
Pat Roberts, Republican from Kansas, received $ 1, 584, and 453.00.
Tom Cotton, Republican from Arkansas, received $ 1, 968,714.00.
David Perdue, Republican from Georgia, received $ 1,997,512.00.
Bill Cassidy, Republican from Louisiana, received $ 2,687,074.00.
Joni Earnst, Republican from Iowa, received $ 3, 124,773.00.
Cory Gardner, Republican from Colorado, received $ 3, 939,199.00.
Tom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, $ 4, 418.033.00.
The NRA also spent over fourteen million dollars more to defeat candidates who favor background checks.
Then there is the thirty million dollars it spent to elect Trump and defeat Hillary Clinton.
By the end of the week, Trump’s proposed solution wasn’t to re-enact the assault rifle ban but rather to arm teachers.
Never mind the fact that teachers have declared that they don’t want to be armed.
Never mind the fact that trained police officers only hit their targets eighteen percent of the time.
It also didn’t take long for the leader of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, to come out from under his rock and join the conversation.
Wayne travels with his own security is apparently not the mythical “good guy with a gun” that would stop “bad guy with a gun.”
LaPierre accused the media of profiting from the school shootings. In his warped mind, they may have even staged them too.
His solution was, of course, more guns.
Guns for teachers, guns for armed guards, no matter what the situation, more guns is the solution.
My guess, is that if he were anywhere near a school shooting he’d be hiding in the nearest hidey hole too.
Neither Trump nor LaPierre offered any proposal about how armed guards in schools would be funded.
It would be interesting to see how they and their supporters would feel about funding it with a tax levied on assault rifle owners and assault rifle manufacturers.
` After all, why should the rest of us have to bear this cost, when the simple solution is to ban the weapon?
Florida’s Governor, Rick Scott and the State legislature are clearly under the thumb of the NRA.
Scott has signed more pro-gun legislation into law in one term than any other Governor in Florida history.
In Florida, you must be twenty-one to purchase a handgun, for which no permit is necessary, but you can purchase an assault rifle at age eighteen, like the Parkland high school shooter did.
See if you can understand the logic of that legislative scheme.
At this writing, the Florida state legislature has shelved legislation that would allow gun owners to carry their firearms into school buildings.
Don’t be surprised if that passes later this year.
Following the mass shooting in Las Vegas last year, Pew Research reported that 68% of Americans favor a ban on assault rifles and 64% favor a ban of magazines which hold more than ten rounds.
The students that survived the Parkland high school shooting last week have made it very clear where politicians can stick their “thoughts and prayers.”
I’m with them on that one.
Former Georgia Congressman, Jack Kingston, a Trump shill who appears on CNN has sunk to a new low by accusing the surviving students of the massacre of being pawns of George Soros.
The talk about more mental illness programs rings a bit hollow since Trump repealed an Obama era regulation that would have authorized background checks for people receiving mental health benefits seeking to purchase a firearm.
If these politicians are such Second Amendment purists, then why don’t they repeal the laws that prevent people from bringing firearms into the halls of congress and the state legislatures?
The primary reason I am not optimistic about any prospect of an assault ban being enacted is this.
This past June, a gunman opened fire on a group of republican congressmen practicing for a charity softball game in Alexandria, Virginia.
Republican House Majority Whip, Steve Scalise, was seriously injured.
In the wake of that attack the Republican Congress still would not enact any gun measures.
Maybe that suggests that Paul Ryan is right.
It is about mental illness.
It’s about insanity.
In this case, the insanity is the failure to do anything over and over again and expecting a different result.