Every once in a while, the reason we can’t seem to get anything done in this country jumps up and bites me on the nose in a way that can’t be ignored.
My granddaughter and I fairly regularly attend church. It’s a rather conservative congregation that tends to be older. Our regular Clergy were out this weekend, and we had a stand-in from a similar denomination.
I look forward to our regular clergy and their messages of positivity and hope. Such was not the case this morning. When we headed for the coffee hour which follows the 10 a.m. service, the first thing out of my granddaughters mouth was “what was that?”
We were harangued for 15 minutes with a message promoting gun control.
My granddaughter loves newspapers. The feel of them. The smell. The experience that comes from reading one. At the beginning of this year, I gifted her a subscription. Not only does she read them, but she follows what is going on.
Her immediate response was that the school had failed. She read, correctly I might add, that the shooter’s mother had called Apalachee High School warning of an “impending disaster”.
They treated it as a joke.
In her 12-year-old mind, bolstered with her 7th grade education, she firmly believes it was the school’s fault. They were notified. According to her, the teachers should have had the means to protect their students. She’s demanding to know why the school had to wait until people were dying before going on lockdown.
She wants exactly what the liberal clergy wants, which is safe schools where the students don’t have to do active shooters drills, and don’t have to worry about a shooter. What’s worlds apart is how we get to the outcome that we all agree upon.
The Left thinks we should disarm.
Trust the government, they say. Only government officials should have weapons.
That has worked out so well for the Venezuelans, where the winner of their election had to flee the country because the only people who have guns are the government.
The British don’t have weapons, and now they are trying to ban knives. Really?
We would still be under the thumb of the British Crown if it were not for our forefathers who were armed with state-of-the-art weapons for their time.
My Granddaughter wants to know why the very people charged with the safety of the students were not armed. So, do I.
She is also aware of the arguments for seizing all the guns and knows it’s fundamentally disingenuous. She knows about the success in Switzerland where – just about everyone – is armed. She has also read about the failures in “gun control” countries where the violence moves to an older, and much more deadly, demographic.
The options seem to be “total disarmament” or require those responsible for the students to be armed. With a slightly greater than one-to-one ratio of weapons to citizens in the United States, seizing the weapons is not going to work. It’s beyond not going to work. It’s downright stupid.
Both sides are convinced their position is correct and the only way forward.
They are both wrong.
There is a compromise that will work, and if it’s done properly, may allow us to address some of the mental health issues that plague our society today. For the sake of our young people, we do need a solution, one that embodies the very best of both views on this thorny problem.
Today’s youth should not have to settle for anything less, and they shouldn’t be forced to, either.
