TRUMP LAUDS ‘HERO’
Debate must come later and keep rights in mind
Thank you, Mr. President, for being a friend to the American people.
In Las Vegas yesterday — as you did after the devastating hurricanes in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico — you showed up and delivered. In the aftermath of a horrible massacre, you brought our country together with comforting words of unity and resilience.
This is exactly what our shaken nation needs during tumultuous times — not political grandstanding.
Democrats in Congress have chosen to exploit the national tragedy by immediately calling for gun control — pushing their long-standing political agenda. How tasteless to do this before all the victims were even identified, let alone buried or rightfully memorialized.
You told us instead that we’ll have a gun law debate when the time is right.
The rational among us know that implementing meaningful public policy — and any discussion around issues that might involve stripping Americans of their constitutional rights — should never be done when emotions are raw. The time for a Second Amendment debate and whether bumpstock devices should be regulated is when the bereaved have had a chance to bury their dead and healing has begun — not before.
Here’s what you should say to gun-grabbing members of Congress when that high-stakes debate begins.
There are three things that drive mass murder: religious extremism, mental illness and hate. It’s not about the tool — the weapons don’t fire themselves. It’s the hate, poisonous ideology or psychosis that kills. In radical Islam’s war against the West, we’ve seen box cutters and airplanes, bombs, trucks, fire, knives and acid all used as weapons to kill thousands of people. Clearly it’s not about the weapon — it’s about fanaticism.
The mass killer in Las Vegas, whose motive remains undisclosed, acquired his guns legally. Making guns illegal will just boost the black market that already exists in cities like Chicago, a city stricken by extreme gun violence — run by Democrats who favor gun control.
The most fundamental human right we have is the right to self-defense. Stripping law-abiding citizens of their ability to protect themselves is to strip away our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The government can’t legislate away hate, but it can and should guard our ability to defend ourselves — a right enshrined in the Second Amendment.
I ask you, Mr. President, to keep protecting our fundamental human rights.