In the wake of Michigan State University, absolutely no one is surprised to hear that there are students who want gun control. As per usual, some politically-focused pastors have joined in the call as well.
It’s nothing new. We’ve seen it plenty of times.
Yet I’m going to ask a question that isn’t popular, that simply isn’t supposed to be done. I’m going to ask, “So what?”
A group of advocates aiming to end gun violence gathered in Lansing on Wednesday to show support for newly proposed bills.
Faith and education leaders spoke at the Anderson House Office building.
Among them was Carl Austin Miller Grondin, a survivor of the shooting at Michigan State University, and the Student Body Vice President.
But when you look, you see a couple of dozen people at most. Michigan State has a student population of over 50,000. In other words, there is a small handful of the total number of students there making a political request. Where is everyone else?
Oh, it’s possible they simply capped the number of students who could be there, but why do that? If you want to pretend there’s a groundswell of support for gun control, why not have thousands?
Not that it would or should matter.
You see, I get very sick of these kinds of displays. It’s not that these students shouldn’t have their freedom of speech. Oh no, I want them to speak. I want them to have the right to say things I vehemently disagree with. I want that because I value my rights, and I cannot protect them unless I’m willing to protect people who use those rights in ways I disagree with so long as no one gets harmed.
What bothers me, though, is that we have events like this reported by the media, broadcast all over the nation, and these students act as if they speak for the entire student body–the same student body that didn’t bother to come.
The truth of the matter is that in the wake of any mass shooting, you’re going to have some who will step forward and demand gun control. Most of them were those who were already inclined to want it in the first place and are just using the shooting as a pretext. A handful of others are so shaken by what happened that they honestly think that gun control is a good idea. The event turns them into believers.
However, there are also a number who look at what happened and see the many failures of gun control, things that were billed as needed to prevent such events from happening, and yet, it happened just the same.
Those individuals become either pro-gun or more vehement in their support of the Second Amendment. They have no interest in what their peers seem to be focused on.
So what bothers me is that the media focused exclusively on those who want gun control, yet never bother to look for anyone who disagrees. They want to pretend only the first kind exists.
Considering the media has long ago given up any pretenses of being unbiased, this isn’t surprising.
The problem for them, though, is that I no longer have any reason to care about those students clamoring for gun control. I know that, in many ways, they’re marketing for a product that has no relation to how popular that product actually is.
Gun control failed to stop Michigan State University, but now we’re supposed to trip over ourselves because a handful of people who already wanted gun control now want gun control? I’m sorry, but my ability to give a damn is broken and the repairman simply won’t be able to get to it until sometime in the 34th century.
