What a way to celebrate Presidents' Day! Here we go again! Yet another horrific and heartbreaking mass school shooting. I was initially thinking that this post doesn't have that much to do with Trump, despite his asinine tweet that the FBI screwed up because they are too preoccupied with the Russia investigation(!), but it does. He actually signed legislation a year ago this month that makes it easier for some people with mental health problems to purchase guns! Could that have anything to do with the NRA spending $30 million to support his campaign?! And, like the vast majority of Republican lawmakers, he has opposed any restrictions whatsoever on guns (although probably just for political reasons rather than actual conviction), not even mentioning the word guns in his multiple statements and tweets about the latest shooting! Guns aren't the problem, they say, it's criminals and people with mental health problems and evil people and the Hollywood-inspired culture that are the problem. Never mind that they want to cut funding for mental health care, which is already appallingly poor in most of the country. Of course these are all problems, but when you really think about it, the key issue is actually the GUNS. There are mentally ill people and criminals everywhere in the world, but no other developed (can I really say civilized?) country has anywhere near the number and scope of mass shootings that we now see on a regular basis in this country. What is the difference? I don't think it is the incidence of mental illness in the population. The difference is the ridiculously easy access, both legal and illegal, to guns here, particularly assault weapons, which in my opinion have NO place EVER being owned by civilians! The second amendment, adopted in 1791, does not say anything at all about the right to own assault weapons, and the courts have clearly established the government's ability to regulate and restrict weapon ownership, so the idea that there is some inherent right of citizens to own any kind of gun they want is simply ridiculous! It is mind-boggling that in Florida (and I don't know how many other states) 18-year-olds can legally buy an unlimited number of assault rifles. Of course we should have better mental health care in this country. Of course we should have universal background checks for purchasing guns (which is still opposed by the NRA puppets in government despite support by the overwhelming majority of citizens!). Of course we should try to prevent criminals and mentally ill people from buying and owning guns. All of these things should help reduce the number of mass shootings, and I am all for them. However, these as well as the FBI failure in the recent shooting are just being used as shiny objects dangled to distract us by the NRA puppets, most of whom probably have no intention of following through on any of these measures. But the elephant in the room is still the GUNS!! The fact is that most of the recent mass shootings involve assault weapons that were purchased legally with background checks by people who had not been judged mentally ill by a court, despite whatever mental health problems they had, and had no felony convictions. And the gun lobby's idea of having teachers walk around with concealed weapons to protect students is just ludicrous (their solution is always more guns)! Their argument that if assault rifles were banned, the shooters would either get them illegally or just use some other weapon to kill people is also an absurd excuse for inaction, like arguing that it is pointless to have laws against robbing banks because the crooks will still try to rob banks or find other ways to steal your money!

It is clear that the system failed at almost every level with the Parkland shooter, who we now know owned 10 assault rifles. But even if the FBI hadn't completely dropped the ball this time and had interviewed him, and even knowing his full history, there is probably nothing that they could have done to stop him. There were certainly no legal grounds to arrest him or confiscate his weapons, probably no grounds to have him committed to a mental facility, and no way to put him under full-time surveillance. The confidentiality laws are also a major impediment to implementing effective measures to prevent people with mental health issues who have not been adjudicated by a court to be mentally ill from legally buying guns. When it comes down to it, there is really only one solution which circumvents all of these problems, and that is re-instituting the national ban on assault weapons, which was in place for a decade up to 2004, following which there has been a significant increase in mass shootings. States like Connecticut which have recently tightened their gun control laws have seen a decrease in gun violence, so we know it can be effective. Unfortunately this is very unlikely to happen on a national level, and even if it did, it would be difficult to enforce, and would necessitate the messy confiscation of assault weapons from law-abiding citizens. However, I see no other measure that could be anywhere nearly as effective. Action at the state level is probably more achievable in the foreseeable future. One can only hope that the admirable and vociferous protests by the Parkland students and parents and their allies will continue and may make a dent in the political landscape at both the state and federal level in a midterm election year. The sad truth is that until elected officials feel that they are in more political jeopardy from opposing than supporting reasonable gun control, and until new candidates come forward with a platform supporting those measures, nothing will change significantly. That means that in order to even have a chance at accomplishing these goals, the vast silent voter pool which supports these measures must also become vocal and send specific and countless messages to all of their representatives on both the state and national level stating that they will vote them out of office unless they publicly support gun-control measures. Political contributions to pro-gun control candidates is also critical to counter NRA money. That is just the simplest way to address this vastly complicated and controversial issue.

#VoteThemOut

It’s The Guns, Stupid!! #VoteThemOut