Valentines Day will never be the same for the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. On that day last year, an expelled former student named Nikolas Cruz walked into the school with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and calmly killed 17 people, students and teachers, and wounded 17 others. Cruz should not have been able to buy a gun, and indeed should not have been walking the streets. The warning signs were everywhere, and were either overlooked or ignored.
The high school, like all other schools in Florida, and the rest of the nation for that matter, was a so-called “Gun Free Zone”. No one but law enforcement personnel were permitted to legally carry a firearm on the premises. However, Nikolas Cruz didn’t care about the rule. To him, it was a “Free Fire Zone”, where he could be reasonably sure that he could carry out a massacre of unarmed individuals with impunity, at least until law enforcement arrived, and that would take critical minutes. So, he killed or wounded 34 people, and then calmly left the school and walked several blocks to a fast food restaurant, where he purchased a soft drink.
A year later, my local newspaper, very liberal leaning, like most media these days, is full of stories decrying gun violence and wondering why the “Shooting Gallery” (that they think America has become) hasn’t passed sweeping legislation to ban the sale and ownership of all firearms. One article really caught my eye. It was written by a senior student at Stoneman Douglas, and had the following headline.
“Would Congress act if Parkland had been a plane crash instead?”
The young lady, a founder of “March For Our Lives”, then proceeded to say that in 2017, nearly 40,000 Americans died as a result of guns. She didn’t think it necessary to break that number down into categories. That didn’t matter, because it wasn’t the MANNER of death that counted, it was the THING that caused it. The dreaded GUN! If only all those malevolent THINGS could be banished, we would all be safe. Everyone would follow the rules, and no one would use any other means to commit an atrocity. Yes, of course.
She then went on to say if nearly 30,000 Americans had died in crashes of Boeing 737s, the entire fleet would be grounded, the government would declare a national emergency, an independent commission would be created to investigate the crisis, and Boeing would be called before Congress to answer for its failures. There’s that logic again, it isn’t the pilots flying the planes, or perhaps the terrorists blowing them out of the skies with shoulder launched missiles, it isn’t severe turbulence or wind shear, it’s the PLANE that’s at fault, the inanimate OBJECT!
Well, young lady, I won’t mention your name because I don’t want to cause you further distress. But get real! First, be a good reporter. Was it almost 30,000 gun deaths in 2017, or was it almost 40,000? You mention both in your article. Did the GUNS do the shooting, or was it the INDIVIDUALS holding them? Were the victims mainly suicides or homicides? What were the profiles and backgrounds of the shooters? The same for the victims. Were most shooters and their victims gang members, and what were the races of those involved? How many of the shooters were in this country illegally? If the victims were family members and victims of domestic violence, would the killer have used another method if a firearm wasn’t available? If a knife, ax hatchet or machete were used, as is common in gun free Britain, should we ban those too? Last, but not least, if the victim had been armed, would they have been able to defend themselves?
One last thing. There were more than 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017, almost twice the number killed by guns. Most of those deaths occurred because of illicit drugs smuggled across our southern border, the same border that many politicians are refusing to close to illegal entry. Do you consider that a crisis as well?