Guns vs Kids: Politicians Choose Guns

The kids from Parkland, Florida have embarked upon a campaign to change the laws that currently allow anyone over the age of eighteen to purchase an assault weapon like the one that terrorized them and which took the lives of seventeen fellow students and faculty at their high school. 

A few days later those youngsters asked their representatives in the Florida House to use their positions of power to stop the easy sale of assault weapons.  Of course, the students discovered that having both truth and justice on their side means nothing to politicians indebted to the gun lobby.

Some of the students met with the President in front of a national audience on television.

He nodded and appeared to be listening compassionately while knowing that his staff had carefully prepared his responses.  In the end, he attacked the FBI; and, after due consideration, offered a plan that would not upset the NRA: “Arm the Teachers!”

The right-wing echo chamber immediately launched the same verbal weapons that they used to demonize Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Election.  They accused these kids of being paid actors while they were fresh from escaping the most terrifying experience we can imagine: racing away from hundreds of bullets flying at them at speed of more than 1000 mph…. tearing flesh and crushing bones wherever they hit a human body.  Meanwhile, we saw pictures of armed deputies hiding behind their cars outside the building, knowing that their handguns were no match for an assault weapon. 

These young survivors had seen friends and teachers gunned down when they stopped to help others.  They heard the screams of terror and agony… knowing that they might be next.  Some hid and texted family often believing that they were about to die

With the entire nation aghast at the horror our American children had just experienced, the political leaders of our country tried to balance how to say the right things to the outraged young people seeking a change from the madness while these political hacks were really concentrating how to save their seats in the next election or how to save the big donation that they had received from the NRA.  

The political leaders’ decision? 1st: support the NRA, next: save their seats in Congress, last: consider the kids.

In what kind of country could this have happened? How can we allow them to keep control of our democratic institutions?  We can only recover the dignity of the American dream at the ballot box!  And we can only succeed at the ballot box by calling out the liars, the haters, and the propagandists!

The elections of 2018 and 2020 are likely to be the last chance to save our country!

Al