Apparently, liberals have a plan to bring an end to school shootings: Make disclosure of firearm ownership mandatory for all families enrolled in public education. According to the Missouri Torch:
A pre-filed bill in the Missouri Senate would require parents of public school students to report to the school if they own a gun.
Why don’t we just cut right to the chase, and write a law instructing would-be mass-shooters to report their intentions well ahead of time? Or, heck, we could just outlaw the act of killing innocent school children. And I’m sure criminals, owners of illegal weapons, and potentially dangerous sociopaths will be more than happy to follow along with such equally ridiculous legislation. Right?
More than being an egregious violation of personal privacy, the bill highlights the impotence of progressive “solutions” to violence conducted with firearms. Compulsory disclosure of gun ownership provides the authorities with such little actionable or useful information it is almost not worth mentioning.
Of course, in in places like New York, such disclosure of firearm ownership is actually aiding authorities. Without a public registry of firearm licenses, authorities in NYC would have a far more difficult time confiscating weapons from law-abiding gun owners who have accidently run afoul of newly enacted gun laws.
The Missouri proposal, however, does not call on parents to disclose the specific firearms they own… See, according to Liberals, all guns are evil – and all gun owners merit increased scrutiny and surveillance by authorities. (Wow… And you wonder why people with guns don’t like more gun laws… Weird.)
The Missouri Torch reported:
This act requires a parent or guardian to notify a school district, or the governing body of a private or charter school, that he or she owns a weapon within 30 days of enrolling the child in school or becoming the owner of a weapon. The written notification only needs to include the names of the parent and any child attending the school and the fact that the parent owns a weapon.
Naturally, the question arises: What the heck is this proposal actually supposed to accomplish? Aside from giving schools (read: government) a list of the county’s child-bearing gun owners, actionable intelligence (and almost any other kind of intelligence as well) is non-existent.
More than likely, the bill is a reflection of the increasingly ambitious campaign to delegitimize gun ownership. After all, it’s not as if it is designed to prevent maniacs from shooting up a school. The good news is that the bill’s author, Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal, has introduced this bill before… And it went no-where. But her ambitions are telling of liberal impotence, and the left’s intrinsic inability to address the fundamental issues facing the nation.
There is no doubt that violence is a real, and tragically too regular, occurrence in the world. And while some schools are deciding to arm resource officers, permit concealed carry, and even hire additional security, the liberal solution is put up more “no guns” signs and ask parents about their personal interest in firearm ownership.
Heck, we should be recruiting gun-owning parents to volunteer (with rifle in hand) as “campus watch” guards. Most parents I know would be happy to guard their child’s life with a gun. But something tells me that’s not what the bill’s sponsor had in mind.