The Florida school massacre has created a groundswell I hope will result in America being a better place.
There is a growing group of politicised young people demanding that things are changed so that they and their friends and other young people in their situation no longer face the prospect of being indiscriminately killed.
Watching from afar it is really impressive. Young people demanding that things should be made better and they should not face the prospect of dying at their schools. Passionate young people saying the system is broken because massacres have happened again and again and we need to do better.
And POTUS decided to enter the debate by proposing that teachers are armed.
His response is so inane, so insensitive, so underwhelming. Imagine proposing the arming of teachers and school employees and thinking this would reduce the incidence of gun killings. Imagine thinking that the secret to less gun killings is more guns.
Elements of the right have been attacking the students. Apparently they are all Democrat operatives.
And the NRA has gone full wingnut. From the Guardian:
The head of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) has broken his silence more than a week after the Florida school shooting with a vituperative attack on gun control advocates, accusing them of exploiting the tragedy to push their agenda.
Wayne LaPierre, whose lobby group faces an unprecedented challenge from the activism of students, including survivors of the massacre, sought to paint his opponents as “elites” and “socialists” hellbent on undermining Americans’ constitutional rights.
“The elites don’t care not one whit about America’s school system and schoolchildren,” he told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the National Harbor in Maryland. “If they truly cared, what they would do is they would protect them. For them, it’s not a safety issue, it’s a political issue.
“They care more about control, and more of it. Their goal is to eliminate the second amendment and our firearms freedoms so they can eradicate all individual freedoms… They hate the NRA, they hate the second amendment, they hate individual freedom.”
Apparently wanting to stop gun violence is Socialist and an attack on the second amendment which apparently was a gift from God.
LaPierre sought to put the warnings in the wider context of a “socialist enemy” within, who he said “oppose our fundamental freedoms enshrined in the bill of rights”. He claimed that the Communist Manifesto and Karl Marx were ascendent on university campuses, describing socialism as “a political disease”.
The NRA chief warned the packed ballroom: “You should be anxious and you should be frightened. If these so-called European socialists take over the House and the Senate and, God forbid, they win the White House again our American freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever, and the first to go will be the second amendment to the US constitution” – the right to bear arms.
But the groundswell is really uplifting. Like teachers who are advocating that their being armed with things other than guns could actually achieve a lot of good. The twitter hashtag #armmewith has many, many good examples.
And to all the students all I can say is respect. Like to Emma Gonzales who gave this outstanding speech at a recent rally.
Hopefully some good will come from this. Like an improved democracy and the reduction of the influence of the NRA in the halls of power.
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