What happened is that a group of determined high school kids decided that they were going to do what nobody else has been able to do, namely, create a new, national narrative about guns. And they did it with dignity, with decency and with no ulterior motives other than to express themselves about why schools need to be a gun-free zones. They’ll leave it to the ‘adults’ to figure out how to protect them from gun violence in a rational and disciplined way, but the one thing they won’t do is accept the idea that the best way to protect ourselves from violence is to use violence, which is why the ‘good guy with the gun’ nonsense peddled by Gun-nut Nation was drowned out.
Not that the NRA didn’t try to get their usual, nonsensical narrative out there. Of course they did. But since the Dana Loesch rant went nowhere last week, this week they trotted out Colion Noir. And Noir did what he always does: a little hip, a little cool, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, all of which added up to his usual admixture of half-truths, total fabrications and just another primitive attempt to make people believe that what he says has anything to do with reality at all.
First Colion reminded the Parkland kids that they were using their 1st-Amendment ‘rights’ to attack the 2nd-Amendment ‘rights’ of legal gun owners, as if any of the gun-control proposals floating around Congress threaten the 2nd Amendment at all. Then Colion managed to weave a complete fabrication into his spiel by lamenting the ‘fact’ that a deputy sheriff in St. Mary’s County received no media attention after stopping the shooter at a Maryland school. Of course Colion then wrapped this lie around an even bigger fable by saying that the incident at Great Mills High School was proof once again that ‘good guys with guns’ will stop ‘bad guys with guns.’ Except nobody in the gun-control movement has ever been against placing armed, law-enforcement personnel in schools; it’s the presence and behavior of armed civilians like Colion that we are worried about.
But let’s not waste any more time or space on the NRA; their job is to promote the ownership of guns, so how could they not come out with a narrative designed to do anything other than keep their members in line? On the other hand, even the NRA‘s best buddy (a.k.a) Donald Trump spent yesterday ducking for cover in Palm Beach, while also sending out a positive message to the Parkland marchers just in case. I mean, what else was he going to do? Tell the 50 pro-gun demonstrators who showed up at the Boston march that he had their backs in the face of the 50,000 who marched for the other side?
I have received a number of emails and Facebook messages from participants in yesterday’s event, some of whom tell me that they need more information in order to speak credibly about guns. Here’s a typical comment: “I am concerned with the people in the middle who could be supporters. We don’t do ourselves any favors when it appears we can’t do the research and understand what we are arguing for.”
So with all due respect to Colion Noir who wants you to believe that what he says about guns is really true, here’s a little resource which explains gun terminology which you can download right here for free. Or you can spend a few bucks and buy the fancy version on Amazon, for which I get a whole, big, buck twenty-five. Either way, you’ll have the basic know-how you need the next time you go out and join a march.
And there will be a next time. I guarantee it. I really do.
Mar 25, 2018 @ 09:33:43
“I have received a number of emails and Facebook messages from participants in yesterday’s event, some of whom tell me that they need more information in order to speak credibly about guns.”
That is encouraging. My concern is the discussion has become so polarized that no discussion of this sort will be encouraged.
Mar 25, 2018 @ 11:34:08
“Except nobody in the gun-control movement has ever been against placing armed, law-enforcement personnel in schools”
Well, I’m opposed. I heard the following – that the time between any school being hit twice in the US is 68 years. If this is in anyway true, that doesn’t seem like a good use of resources. You’re hiring an officer to do nothing much for 68 years.
Better to stop bad people getting guns, and better to get those guns back that shouldn’t be out there.
“here’s a little resource which explains gun terminology which you can download right here for free.”
Sounds good. Unfortunately, the ‘assault weapons’ mob are out in force these days. Each convinced that they’ll soon put Mrs Loesch in her place. It’s too painful to watch.
Mar 25, 2018 @ 13:58:11
Thank you Mike for providing a link to your little resource which explains gun terminology. In your resource, you talk about assault weapons and their definition. You say: “But the real reason it is an assault weapon is that it is designed to do one thing and one thing only, and that is to assault human beings and cause great harm.
Using your reason and logic, this country founded it’s firearm industries to design firearms “to do one thing and one thing only”? For example America’s first sidearm was the Model 1775 which was a muzzle-loading, 62-caliber smoothbore flintlock made by the Rappahannock Forge in Virginia. This company was the key manufacturing base and arsenal for the Continental forces and produced 80,000 muskets to be used to “assault human beings and cause great harm” in the American Revolution.
Copies of the Model 1775 pistol were later made at Harper’s Ferry. This gun was renamed the Model 1805 and was the weapon choice during the War of 1812. To this day the Harper’s Ferry Model 1805 pistols is the Branch Insignia for the U.S. Army Military Police.
Using you assertion, could it not be inferred that all handguns are also “assault weapons?”
Mar 25, 2018 @ 19:40:51
In the two Supreme Court decisions which define the 2nd Amendment (and I don’t care how anyone would like it to defined, it’s what the Court says that counts, they make a clear distinction between ‘weapons of war’ and weapons for personal use; the latter now protected under the 2008 decision, the former not protected. The guns that were made at the various military arsenals in VA and MA were made for the military; hence they are weapons of war. The fact that our laws allow civilians to purchase such weapons doesn’t matter – they do not have 2nd-Amendment protections.
Most of the handguns we now buy were also originally designed to be military guns – the Colt 1911, the S&W M&P revolver, the Beretta 92, the Glock (originally made for the Austrian army.) The fact that civilians can buy them doesn’t change their history or their use. If they were designed for the military they do not have 2nd-Amendment protection. And this isn’t my opinion – it is explicitly stated in the 2008 Heller decision.
I bought my first real gun in 1956. Between 1956 and 2008 I bought and sold more than 500 guns, not a single one of those transactions had any Constitutional protection at all. Nor did any of the transactions during that same period that resulted in the growth of the civilian arsenal. And not a single one of those transactions had any Constitutional protection either. And every transaction was legal, and none of those guns was ever confiscated, or anything else.
Nobody gave a rat’s damn about the 2nd Amendment until the boys in Fairfax started pretending that the 2nd Amendment was being threatened. What nonsense.
Mar 26, 2018 @ 13:33:18
Mike. The essence of the
1930s Miller decision was that 2 A rights applied only to arms in use by state militias. Which presumably were made for the purpose. One could try to argue that for the military is somehow different than for the miltia, I guess.
Mar 25, 2018 @ 22:39:46
Oh, I don’t know…I have always given a rat’s damn about the 2nd Amendment. I gave a rat’s damn about it when I was shooting squirrels in Harlem, I gave a rat’s damn about it when I was serving my country and I still give a rat’s damn.
Just like the entire Constitution and all of the Amendments I give a rat’s damn.
In 1787 only white men over the age of 21 could vote, the President could serve as long as he was elected. So the Constitution has changed over the years and will continue to change. This is why I give a rat’s damn.
I don’t believe the boys in Fairfax are the ones who started to give a rat’s damn.
Mar 25, 2018 @ 22:47:10
P.S. I’ll ask again…using your assertion, could it not be inferred that all handguns are also “assault weapons?”
Mar 25, 2018 @ 21:27:48
I honestly believe the kids are doing this to save their own lifes. I can remember when my children were in school we always felt it was a safe place for them. I think the schools need police around the schools. No teacher should have to bare a gun if they don’t want to.Our whole world has gone completely crazy!
Mar 27, 2018 @ 22:08:07
Not to somehow minimize school shooters, but kids have more chance of being killed by their parent’s generation’s cars than by a shooter’ gun. As Mike said about a month ago, schools are safe. Meanwhile, we ignore what actually kills kids.
As CDC data shows, leading cause of unintended death of kids in many age groups is traffic. Its a little like being afraid to fly and driving instead. The real danger is driving, but the unusual threat of a plane crash worries people.