Opinion/August: No common-sense answers from politicizing gun massacres
Richard J. August testifies and writes frequently about Second Amendment issues. He lives in North Kingstown.
The bodies had not been removed from Robb Elementary School when Democrats began politicizing the deaths of 19 fourth-graders and two teachers.
Beginning with President Joe Biden and all the way down to the usual Hollywood celebrities, the call went out to pass “common-sense” gun laws. Notably, the president is guarded by armed Secret Service agents and the celebs are surrounded by scowling bodyguards with bulges under their jackets.
The public address announcer at the Miami-Boston playoff game in Florida opened with a plea for fans to contact their legislators and demand action. He did not call for disarming the police detail that was everywhere in the venue.
School kids demonstrated at the Rhode Island State House, demanding that lawmakers “do something.” Short of confiscating all 300 million-plus firearms in civilian hands, they, like most politicians, have no idea what would “stop the violence.”
The incident commander in Texas is being criticized for not ordering police officers to storm the classroom where carnage was taking place. His judgment was that they were dealing with a “barricaded perpetrator” rather than an “active shooter” situation. It is called “the fog of war.”
Several years ago I was on a ride-along with a field training officer in an urban police department. I asked him what advice he gave to the probationary officers he was evaluating. “Í tell them not to become a cop if they cannot stand criticism because they will be second-guessed by the press, the public, politicians and courts and even their superior officers over every decision they make,” he replied.
Why was the door used to gain entry propped open by a teacher? Why did someone not notice the 18-year-old with a rifle wandering around outside for many minutes? Why did the first four officers at the scene back off when they were fired upon? So many questions, so few answers.
I heard a former congressman, now a talking head on cable TV, say if his child was in the building no one would have stopped him from going in. The last thing the police need is hysterical mothers and enraged fathers racing around a school with one or more armed, mentally disturbed (and all of them are) young men in the building.
Some lawmakers are calling for prohibiting anyone under 21 from buying a firearm. Obviously, they are unaware that the liberal Ninth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the California law doing just that is unconstitutional. No one suggests that an 18-year-old who joins the military wait until 21 to be issued a real assault rifle and be trained how to use it.
As The Wall Street Journal editorialized on May 25, “anyone who thinks gun laws will end mass shootings in America isn't paying attention to the much larger problem of mental illness and the collapse of cultural guardrails” and “the rise of family dysfunction and the decline of mediating institutions such as churches.”
Unfortunately, these do not fit the definition of “common-sense solutions.”
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Opinion/August: No common-sense answers from politicizing gun massacres
