With gun-control student activists emerging in after the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting, an earlier generation of advocates having similar good intentions but lacking knowledgeable solutions comes to mind. Meanwhile, more knowledgeable adults use the student activists' bandwagon to hold "their" national anti-gun march – one in which victim families supporting a ban were invited to speak but those opposed were not.
During a 1960s college debate, an anti-defense student activist speaker believed he had solutions no one else did. With billions of dollars budgeted for our nuclear ICBM submarine fleet, he suggested we not commit so much money building these platforms to counter a similar Soviet threat but, instead, build less costly hunter-killer (attack) submarines to follow each Soviet ICBM missile sub. He reasoned, should war erupt, U.S. attack subs could destroy each Soviet ICBM sub. Needless to say, his "eureka" strategy was fraught with faulty reasoning.
There is little doubt this 1960s student activist, like today's anti-gun activists, advocated in good faith. But, too often, an issue's emotion blinds one to more sensible solutions. Gun control is not one of them as it simply cannot work. As a critic points out, it "will not control the element of the population that does the most harm." Would-be shooters denied gun access will resort to whatever other instrument they can access as a tool of death. We have seen this to include bombs, knives and vehicles.
Unfortunately, adults working with student activists fail to encourage them to strip the gun control issue of emotion to debate rational solutions. And, unfortunately, one seeking a logical discussions suggesting gun control alternatives immediately opens oneself up to liberal attacks.
David Hogg is an anti-gun student activist at the Parkland school whom, thanks to liberal groups, has received more than his 15 minutes of fame. Whether driven by emotion or merely bad upbringing, Hogg gave a profanity-laced interview in which he spared no one, including his "old-ass" parents (who "don't know how to use a f__king democracy so we have to") and the NRA ("they're pathetic f___ers that want to keep killing our children"). Despite advocating NRA responsibility for "killing our children," when queried as to what gun control measures are needed, Hogg irresponsibly claimed no responsibility to formulate solutions since he is only 17.
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To understand how activists reject applying logic to this issue, one need only look to Hogg's response concerning a sensible preventative measure his school adopted: mandating students only bring clear backpacks to school. Hogg sees this as an infringement on his First Amendment rights. (One wonders if he actually meant Fourth Amendment, prohibiting unreasonable searches.) Apparently, infringing upon others' Secon Amendment rights is acceptable; infringing upon activists' First (or Fourth) Amendment rights is not.
As one pro-gun critic explains the liberal logic in supporting Hogg's rants, "We should listen to … (him) on gun policy as he argues that because of his age he's too irresponsible and immature to own a gun."
An irresponsible media promotes the image every school has a shooter lurking around the corner. But, a left-leaning group, National Public Radio, of all sources, reports schools today actually are safer.
Noted by Northeastern University professor of criminology James Alan Fox, who has studied the mass murder phenomenon since the 1980s, "Schools are safer today than they had been in previous decades."
Fox explains while multiple-victim shootings in general are increasing, they are not in schools – which average one per year in a country with over 100,000 schools. He adds, 1992-1993 school year shootings claimed 0.55 lives while 2014-2015 claimed only 0.15.
While Fox agrees with student activists we need examine ways of protecting our kids as undefended soft targets, he disagrees taking guns away from everyone in violation of the Second Amendment is the way to go. Most students simply lack ready access to guns to begin with, he says. And, ever since the 1990s' school shootings when young shooters accessed family firearms, parents began locking guns up, before laws mandated they do so. It was a normal reaction for responsible people to responsibly ensure safety – thus contributing to a school shooting decline.
Fox also advocates arming teachers – as a last line of defense for students – against the few able to gain gun access. But, as even NPR notes, if nothing more is done, school shootings ARE NOT increasing but decreasing.
The myth perpetrated by anti-gun activists that banning guns will end the violence ignores the reality even their fellow activists are willing to embrace violence. Numerous death threats were recently issued against the NRA's top lobbyist in Florida, leaving one to wonder what their weapon of choice would be to perpetrate it.
One school seeking to defend students against shooters takes the "caveman approach." The Blue Mountain School District in Pennsylvania distributed five-gallon buckets filled with rocks to each classroom to be thrown at an intruder shooter. Of course, by the time students arm themselves with rocks and, in their frightened state, accurately start hitting their attacker, most stone-throwers will lie mortally wounded.
Augmenting the Second Amendment, allowing one the right to bear arms, are Judeo-Christian teachings giving a right for self-defense. One would like to believe, however, the combination of the two rights would mean providing teachers with more than just rocks to defend themselves and their students.
If gun control activists were open to rational debate, they would recognize, with such an infinitely small group of potential school shooters and such a large population of law-abiding gun owners involved, their solution is the "King Herod" approach. In the Bible, after the wise men arrived in Bethlehem, inquiring where "the one born King of the Jews," Jesus, might be found, King Herod, concerned about being overthrown later by the King of the Jews, ordered all children 2 and under be executed. He, like these gun control activists, took a "shotgun" approach to a problem needing a more focused solution.
Where are wise men when we need them?