Colorado Congresswoman Calls School Shooting 'Policy Choice'

We are living through a dark moment in our country’s history – one that will be remembered for whether we confronted the radicalization and violence tearing at our communities or allowed it to break us apart. As a society, we are being forced to answer a fundamental question: is this who we want to be as a country? This is a policy choice. Not a political one. 

We have to ask ourselves – do we want to live in a country where our kids are being gunned down in their classrooms? Where your life hangs in the balance at a grocery store, a movie theater, or a political rally?

This is the moment to decide. Overwhelmingly, we want a world where our kids can come home safe from school. Where their lives aren’t at risk because of what they believe. But we need leaders who have the courage to stand up and decide that we are no longer going to standby while one more life is taken too soon.

Presumably, Petterson sees herself as one of those leaders. So why couldn't she articulate a policy that she believes would put an end to these types of attacks? 

Colorado already has a "red flag" law. It bans guns sales to adults under the age of 21. It bans "large capacity" magazines, and soon will require a permit to purchase semi-automatic long guns defined as "assault weapons." There's a three-day waiting period on gun transfers, in addition to the state's "universal" background check law. The state mandates firearms be "responsibly and securely stored" when not in use to prevent unauthorized access by juveniles. 

Clearly, those policy choices didn't prevent a 16-year-old from getting their hands on a revolver and bringing it to school, where he was able to repeatedly fire and reload, injuring two students before taking his own life. So what does Petterson believe would have stopped this? And if she doesn't have any answers, why is pretending she does? 

Does Petterson believe all firearms need to be banned? Does she think under-21s should be prohibited from accessing social media (the suspect apparently was part of that grotesque online subculture that idealizes school shooters, though he also allegedly expressed white supremacist and anti-Semitic viewpoints)? If Petterson has the answer, why is she keeping it from us? 

Petterson owes it to her constituents to offer up those solutions she claims to have. If she's got the answers, where's her legislation? There's nothing stopping her from introducing a bill today, or at least providing the outline of her proposal while it's being drafted. 

I'm just as sick of these shootings as Petterson is, but I'm also fed up with politicians using them as an opportunity to grandstand. Petterson says events like these are preventable, but she never explains how. We're told that these events are the result of policy choices, but she never shares her own policies to stop them. 

By claiming to know how to stop these events but refusing to say how, Petterson is ultimately just using the shooting at Evergreen High School to call attention to herself. Maybe that's just par for the course for anti-2A politicians these days, but that doesn't make it any less reprehensible.