Commentary
President plays the child card in gun debate
By Phil Trieb
Phil Trieb is a carpenter and former newspaper editor living in Gary, S.D.
The NRA is being thrashed for an anti-Obama ad that used children. Which children? The president's children.
The NRA asks: "Are the president's kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at theirschools?"
White House press secretary Jay Carney was quoted as saying: "Most Americans agree that a president's children should not be used as pawns in a political fight," and blasted the ad as "repugnant and cowardly."
Well, in announcing their gun initiative, the president and vice president shamelessly played the "child card" (especially exploiting dead children) to push for new gun laws.
In the 3,200 words the president and vice president spilled on Jan. 16, they used such terms as "children," "kids" and "students" 27 times. They specifically referred to Grace McDonald, a child victim of the Newtown shooting, an additional six times. And they trotted out four letter-writing children to watch as Obama circumvented the Constitution to sign an executive order unilaterally spending another $500 million we don't have.
If that's not using children as pawns, what is?
Bureaucrats and politicians never hesitate to play the child card when seeking more money, whether for education, welfare, housing, health care or any of the myriad programs that have put us $16 trillion in the hole. They regularly mouth a bromide that nobody dares deny: "Children are our most precious resource."
I'll deny. Because "resource" is a term that ought to be used with minerals, forests, water, air — not human beings. The president expressed a variant of that in his announcement: "This is our first task as a society, keeping our children safe." And this from a president who fights tooth and nail to fund Planned Parenthood.
That bit of abject hypocrisy aside, it is not society's task to keep "our children" safe. That's the myth behind Hillary Clinton's "takes a village" book title and slogan. Protecting children is the duty of parents. For Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and their ilk, "society" means "government."
The fact is that the more the government tries to keep children safe, through education, through intervention, through "child protective services," through programs, programs, programs — costing trillions — the less safe they are.
Fifteen words in Obama's speech dealt with media: " ... Congress should fund research into the effects that violent video games have on young minds." That was it. Not a word about the blood-drenched movies his wealthy contributors in Hollywood make. Nor on the role that powerful psychotropic medications may play in these mass shootings, with the use of such drugs skyrocketing.
But violence was a common thread, the word itself used 11 times. "Crime" or "criminal," four times. "Tragedy," "atrocity," "massacre," a total of five. "Guns," "bullets" and related words were used 26 times.
The president wants scientific and medical research as to the "causes of gun violence." He is clueless. Nothing "causes" violence. Violence against the innocent is a result of evil.
And he only used that word, "evil," once.
So if anything is cowardly in this debate, it is to take the easy path, to blame guns and not deal with a culture that produces so much evil. Repugnant evil that would take 26 innocent lives, including those of 20 children.
Comments (4)
I totally, absolutely agree. In my opinion, a full 95% of our problems are caused by the person in the mirror. It is true, some kids are just bad as well as stupid. But, when we have mom's and dad's with their heads in the sand, what do we expect? As for "It takes a village" have you ever tried to help? The parent's are just as spoiled rotten as the kids. We are one sick bunch of people in need of a comet to slam into us.
So just to be clear, you definetly don't want armed guards in schools?
As regards the issue of a society's responsibility to protect its people (as much as it troubles me to acknowledge, I'm told children are people too) even the most limited social contracts revoke the sovereign's legitimacy if he/she/they/it are unable to protect the people. Outside of a few Ditto-heads, I doubt you'll find a ton of buyers for that argument.
As for culture's role in creating evil, what is your solution? Evil has existed in all cultures, with or without video games and movies.
Cowardly or not (hint: not), trying to limit the availability of tools that can increase the amount of harm caused by evil is at least something that can be addressed, with the performance measured.
Mark,
I do not support the NRA's proposal to place uniformed, armed guards in schools. 1) It creates the impression of an armed camp, and softens student resistance to the encroachments of the Police State. 2) These mass killers work very quickly, and unless you put a guard at every entrance, in every hallway, outside every classroom, a guard may likely get to the killing zone too late.
But if school staff, including teachers, were armed, and trained, and would-be shooters knew they'd face a fair fight, I bet most would think twice, before trying another Columbine or Sandy Hook. These are cold, calculating killers, who want to make the record books, and if they figure they will probably be stopped after only killing a few, they will fall short of their gory goal, and may not try.
To deal with evil? Swift and sure justice, and punishment proportionate to the crime. The only good thing most of these killers do, is to kill themselves, saving the taxpayers millions in psychoanalysis and legal fees for protracted trials.
And the Founders must roll in their graves at the things we claim are protected by the First Amendment: vile porn, filthy and violent lyrics, and depictions of wholesale murder called "entertainment." Garbage in, garbage out.
"Violence against the innocent is a result of evil."
Which evil, sir? The evil which leads to the deaths by gunfire of more than 30,ooo citizens every year? The evil that refuses to take simple steps to keep loaded weapons out of the hands of children? Or, perhaps, the evil which finds enormous profit in producing and selling weapons and ammunition intended to do nothing but quickly kill human beings in large numbers?
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