I have to preface this by saying I feel for these kids. Rather than receive the help and healing they deserve, their trauma was exploited by partisan factions for political purposes and it’s so gross.
Now, the Parkland students who opted to join the gun grabbing lobby are the faces of a “new” gun control initiative and the Washington Post is salivating over it.
Called “A Peace Plan for a Safer America” (alternate title: We’ve No Idea Why We Have a Second Amendment, But This Sounds Good So We’ll Roll With It), their plan tacks on every anti-gun measure imaginable. From the WaPo:
The Peace Plan would create a national licensing and gun registry, long a nonstarter with gun rights advocates; ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; implement a mandatory gun buyback program; and install a “national director of gun violence prevention” who would report directly to the president and coordinate the federal response to what advocates call a national public health emergency.It would dramatically increase restrictions around owning guns in ways sure to spark fierce blowback, including raising the age to 21 from 18 for those who want to buy guns. It calls for a “multi-step” gun licensing system, overseen by a federal agency, that would include in-person interviews and a 10-day wait before gun purchases are approved. The license would be renewed annually.
“I think similarly to a lot of the country, I’m in a lot of pain right now,” said David Hogg, 19, a co-founder of March for Our Lives and a survivor of the shooting in February 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. “You see these shootings on TV every day and very little happening around it. It’s painful to watch. And I think it’s been really hard for me and many of the other students and people that we work with to find hope in this time.“But I think that this plan is something that we can truly — as a country and as Americans united against violence and fighting for peace — can get behind.”March for Our Lives has been focused on voter registration and outreach across the country over the past year and a half, building a national infrastructure with more than 100 chapters centered on grass-roots organizing. They hope to turn that into droves of voters at the polls next year….In the vein of the Green New Deal, the Peace Plan takes a holistic approach to gun violence by also calling for automatic voter registration when those eligible turn 18, along with the creation of a “Safety Corps,” which the authors compare to a Peace Corps for gun violence prevention. The plan also proposes community-based solutions like mental health services, as well as programs to address and prevent suicide, domestic violence and urban violence.“It’s bold. It’s nothing like anyone else is proposing. We are really setting audacious goals,” said Tyah-Amoy Roberts, a Parkland survivor who is on the March for Our Lives board of directors. “And more than anything, what we are seeking to do is be intersectional. We know and acknowledge every day that gun violence prevention is not just about preventing mass shootings.”Roberts noted that the effort is also a means of taking ownership of the conversation that has stalled legislatively in Washington — a plan “written by us, for us.”
Sad. Gross. Misguided.
Thank the good Lord we have a Constitution to protect against situational reactivity.
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