Earlier today, a small group of Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. students staged a sit in outside of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office today. They were demanding action on gun control measures. They then listed all of the mass shootings that have occurred, along with chants of “enough is enough” and “hey, hey ho, ho, the NRA has got to go.”
Oh, and the typical “show me what democracy looks like, this is what democracy looks like” was thrown in there as well. It didn’t take long for Capitol Police to arrive on the scene and they arrested the students, while pushing the media down the hall.
The terrible shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida triggered the call for new gun control legislation. Shooter Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 people on February 14. He was formally charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.
While young Americans are certainly getting involved in the political process with this shooting, they’re also going to find out the limits of idealism. What they want—a ban on so-called assault weapons—is not going to happen. The votes aren’t there. What can pass Congress on gun control is the Fix NICS bill, which would strengthen our National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which any one purchasing a gun through a federally licensed firearm dealer has to go through in order to complete the transfer. The ironic twist is that Democrats might nix any chance this could pass since…it could actually pass. It would give the Trump White House a win on a salient 2018 issue and give the GOP the opportunity to argue that they’ve done all they could on new gun legislation. The Left wants a legislative assault on the Second Amendment. To make things more interesting, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), one of the most vocal advocates for gun control in Congress, backs the legislation.
So, Congress could do something on guns, but they won’t because Democrats want to use it for the 2018 election in the hopes of trying to get more of them elected. It’s not about saving lives. On top of that, we have to look at the current system. It should have stopped Cruz from buying a firearm. In 2016, via the Baker Act, he should have been committed for self-mutilation. That would have been cited on a background check and could’ve prevented him from buying an AR-15 rifle just days after he was expelled from the school in February of 2017. The FBI was warned on January 5 about him. Local law enforcement knew about Cruz’s disturbing behavior, visiting his home over 20 times. This was a preventable shooting, but we had a total breakdown of the system at the federal, state, and local level. Maybe that’s where we should look to reform. The system, by and large, should have protected these kids from this heinous event, but incompetent staffers at all levels of government failed them. The FBI didn’t even forward the Cruz tip to their Miami office.
There should be a call to action, I just don’t think the issue here is AR-15 rifles or so-called high-capacity magazines, which contrary to the media and liberal pundits, have nothing to do with the rate of fire of a firearm.