There’s this overwhelming meme from the left, this warped belief that if you don’t support gun control, you want to see kids die as a result. It seems to be everywhere with the left, and it’s the immediate counter to almost any pro-Second Amendment comment on social media.
I’m not the only one who noticed it. The Daily Wire‘s Jarrett Stepman saw it when he visited with the March for Our Lives crowd.
4) Those Who Disagree Viewed as Complicit in Murder
While the name March for Our Lives may be a coincidence, it certainly sounds similar to the March for Life, a pro-life rally that takes place each January in Washington, D.C.
Numerous signs claimed that those who back gun rights don’t care about the lives of children or are responsible for deaths.
Others specifically linked the pro-abortion and gun control movements.
And many condemned the National Rifle Association for having blood on its hands, or insinuated that the pro-gun organization has bought off politicians to support its policy interests.
One protester even compared the NRA to ISIS.
In other words, you either support gun control or you want kids to die.
The thing is, no one wants kids to die. No one who isn’t pathologically insane, anyway. Again, none of us want to see kids die; far too many of us are parents ourselves.
We simply think there’s a better way.
We think there’s a way to make schools safer without interfering with the rights of people who would never commit such an atrocity. Hell, we’re the guys who stop mass shootings with AR-15s. If you take away our guns, we can’t respond.
However, those who want to kill will find other ways. The AR-15 isn’t necessary. Contrary to what many seem to think, it’s not even responsible for some of the most horrific school massacres in history.
The most lethal school shooting in American history was Virginia Tech. In that case, the killer used a couple of handguns to kill 32 people before finally ending his own life. That’s almost twice the death toll of Parkland and is even higher than Sutherland Springs.
When talking about school massacres in general, however, the single deadliest massacre was the Bath School Disaster, where 43 people and the perpetrator were killed in an explosion. While the killer did have a gun, the vast majority of his carnage was caused by the bombs he created and used.
More recently, the Austin, Texas package bombs showed just how easily someone could kill indiscriminately with something other than a firearm. In fact, a handful of people apparently thought the incidents illustrated this fact so well that the bomber must be an NRA member. Luckily, those people appear to be in the minority and were given minimal platforms.
Regardless, though, there’s an important point to note here, and that is how an assault weapon ban won’t have the impact some argue. Instead, it’ll remove one possible tool from the toolbox of a would-be mass shooter.
Because of this, many of us in the pro-Second Amendment community are calling for things that will help regardless of what weapons are available to these would-be mass killers. Allowing teachers to carry their weapons onto a school’s campus (provided they have a valid concealed carry permit), more school resource officers, and similar proposals are only the start.
We also need to delve into the minds of those who commit these atrocities, people like the Parkland killer or the killer in the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting. We need to get into their heads and find out what’s broken.
We need to look at the failures of law enforcement and introduce reforms where necessary. We need to end programs that may mean well but ultimately protect problem children like the Parkland shooter from punishment, punishment that may have helped prevent him from buying a gun in the first place.
Even more so, though, we need detailed studies into the causes of violence. Why do people become violent? Is it socioeconomics? Is it demographics? Is it cultural? Is it because of subcultures? Is it a matter of population density? Is it some combination of all of the above?
Removing guns doesn’t make the world safer. It merely favors those who are bigger, stronger, and more aggressive.
But if you remove the things that make people turn to violence, or at least counter them somehow, you minimize violence overall. It won’t matter how many guns are available or not if people don’t become violent.
So, it’s not that we are fine with seeing dead kids. Far from it. We just believe there are better ways to prevent seeing them.
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