Posted by Children can help adults reclaim common sense about guns and the future.
By David Chmiel
Well, children, it’s clear: we grown-ups have failed you. Not only have we failed you, we have continued to put you in harm’s way. We have done nothing while your classmates and friends have been gunned down around you.
So: It’s up to you.
To which our children reply: No shit…
Seventeen people died on Valentine’s Day, 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Hundreds more made it out alive because, since students with a grudge killed 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, schools have practiced lock-down drills and evacuation plans to perfection. Sadly, they have to.
This was the 290th gun-related school incident since 2013 — the 18th in the six weeks that comprise 2018. This isn’t the same as when today’s grown-ups faked our way through air-raid and fire drills, blissfully in denial that we would ever have to worry about them happening.
“Congress does nothing, we pretend to be upset — then we repeatedly re-elect them.”
Now, about once a week, we watch students walk with quiet, military precision — single-file, hands up — to evade a gunman from inside the school and to placate tense law-enforcement officials surrounding the perimeter. The 19-year-old gunman was one of the “lucky ones” on Valentine’s Day. He dropped his weapons long enough to jump in line and temporarily escape the scene.
Adults go to work in the aftermath. Reporters interview grieving parents, administrators and students. And government “leaders” furrow their brows and bow their heads, offer without conviction their “thoughts and prayers.”
Speaking of conviction, it is time for the U.S. Congress to be charged as accessories in these shootings. It is estimated that anywhere from 75-82 percent of Americans want gun-law reform. Some among that big fat majority want every gun in the Union gathered up and melted down; some want bump stocks, extended clips and every assault weapon to be deemed off-limits to anyone not fighting a war; some would settle for something in between.
Since 1999, the men and women that grown-ups have elected to public office — the people we have entrusted to act on behalf of the public good — have done exactly nothing to ease this burden in our schools. Kids, this is the trifecta for dissing adults: Congress does nothing, we pretend to be upset — then we repeatedly re-elect them.
Now, it’s time to get children of all ages to learn the first rule of journalism: Follow the money. Members of Congress do nothing in part because the National Rifle Association spends tens of millions of dollars to promote a dangerous conceit: that the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment makes it an unalienable right for gun manufacturers to make billions by pretending that assault weapons and assorted paraphernalia are for “hunting and personal protection,” and in some way reinforce the very American sense of independence. The NRA also happened to spend $31 million to help elect the 45th President of the United States. The art of this deal was simple: We give you money, you do what we say.
The NRA also dropped another $42.8 million on contributions to the 10 U.S. Senators they knew would serve as human shields any time some tortured soul decided to run into some school, church, or workplace to exact some revenge for a slight, real or imagined. It also contributed to who knows how many other legislators who went cheap in support of the NRA cause.
I am sure you understand the NRA’s motives. What you may not get is this:
Why don’t the vast majority of grown-ups, on the record as supporting the need to keep their children, friends and neighbors safe from bullets, pull the curtain behind them in the voting booth, take a stand and kick out any sonofabitch who does nothing to make us safer?
Because, apparently, we love our guns as much as our children. The U.S., which represents 4.4 percent of the world’s population, is home to 42 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns.
So here is where we need all you children to do what adults can’t. If you are younger than 18 years old, write your elected leaders and annoy your parents every day to do the same. For those 18 and older, vote. More specifically, vote your confidence. Push these NRA apologists out of office, find candidates you can believe in —or become the next wave of leaders. Give adults someone in whom we can believe, and help us find our way home.
In the meantime, when you are asked what you want for your birthday, for Christmas, or your bar mitzvah, communion or confirmation, say, “A bullet-proof vest, please.” Say it often enough and it might help you get something you really want, adults with a conscience, who act in the best interests of their children.
