It's been just over a week since gunfire tore through the peace outside of the FSU student union building. College students enjoying the spring day suddenly scrambled for cover, and everything changed in an instant.
But while the incident is still fresh, the anti-gunners wasted no time pushing gun control, and they should be careful with that.
Yet the media isn't tempering their enthusiasm, instead giving them a platform to pretend that the only rational thing anyone could do is pass more gun control.
This tragedy marks the second mass shooting at FSU in the last 11 years. It is a grim reminder that no campus, no community, and no family is immune to the reach of gun violence. Yet, despite the mounting death toll and abundance of prayers, opponents of gun control not only continue to block even the most basic measures but rather are fighting to make it easier for individuals to get ahold of firearms.
After the tragic Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, which claimed the lives of 17 and injured 18, the Florida Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott reacted by passing the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Act. The law raised the age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21, created a three-day waiting period between the purchase and delivery of a firearm, and prohibited bump-fire stocks.
Despite this, the Florida Legislature seems keen on repealing measures of this legislation. Last month, the Florida House of Representatives passed House Bill 759, which would decrease the age to buy a long gun from 21 back to 18. Though the Senate counterpart appears to have picked up little traction, Gov. Ron DeSantis has backed this bill and expressed willingness to repeal red flag laws.
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The refusal to stand by us is not just negligent - it is complicit. Every time lawmakers block common-sense reforms, including safe storage laws that are highly popular, they send a message that the right to own an arsenal outweighs the right of students to attend class without fear of being gunned down.
There is no right to live without fear. I'm sorry, but that's the sad truth, in part because you're the only person who can address your fears. Claiming that we should forego a constitutionally protected right--a right specifically protected--for your nebulous right to not feel a certain thing that's completely within your power not to feel is asinine.
And, frankly, even if that right actually existed, my lunch would be more important than your right to not feel a certain way, to say nothing of my gun rights.
What happened last week was awful, but I can point to numerous gun control failures that contributed to what happened. The author mentions age limits, for example. Well, the alleged shooter got a shotgun and a handgun without ever setting foot in a gun store. The age limit did nothing. Red flag laws did nothing at all, either.
But the lack of a campus carry law might well have contributed to the alleged killer's target selection, as well as making sure no one on that part of the campus had any means to respond to such a violent attack.
As for mandatory storage laws, those are meant to keep guns out of the hands of minors. The alleged killer is 20. His household would likely not have been covered.
See, the author, like so many other anti-gun zealots, seems to think that the only way to "stand by" people who were sorta attached to a mass shooting is to pass gun control. However, Florida did that after Parkland, as she noted, but that failed to stop this shooting and numerous other mass killings in the Sunshine State. Why? Because gun control cannot stop such things.
Instead, people like the author prefer to use the bodies of her dead schoolmates as a soapbox to preach about the importance of gun control while ignoring all the stuff they got the last time--things predicated on how they'd stop school shootings--didn't stop a school shooting.
So, forgive me if I don't forfeit my rights to appease someone who can't even look at the subject rationally.
Especially when they think their feelings trump my rights.
