Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Take aim at the gun nuts
NORTHERN Ireland may seem crazy but at least we don’t live in a sick, twisted country like America, where guns are deemed more valuable than the lives of children.
The shooting in Florida, in which 17 people were murdered by neo-nazi and Donald Trump supporter Nikolas Cruz, has exposed the hateful hypocrisy and callous cruelty of the morallydeficient US of A.
You may have thought some sort of turning point had been reached with the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – the second worst school shooting in US history.
It sparked mass protests with the brave young survivors marching in protest and confronting Florida legislators over perverse gun laws.
Surely the nation would listen to a group of young people who, just days before, had been cowering in a classroom praying for their lives?
But the backlash began almost immediately. Trump supporters accused them of being “actors” and claimed the shooting was staged in a bid to push gun control. The despicable Wayne Lapierre, head of the National Rifle Association, called them “haters of freedom”.
And the clown prince Trump responded by demanding even more guns in schools by arming teachers.
Yes, let’s have shootouts in the classrooms. I’ve just shot the gunman – oh no, that was the principal. It wouldn’t have been 17 dead – it would have been 117. Why does Trump think lowly-paid teachers should put their lives on the line when sheriff’s deputies were too scared to tackle the killer? Seems the good guys with guns weren’t much help.
The Second Amendment, the one gun-nuts always refer to when defending their right to go shopping with an AR-15, was never intended to make gun violence the leading cause of death in America. It was written in 1789 when the then fledgling States had recently won a war of independence against Britain. It was a close-run thing – at one point future president George Washington was commanding an army that had hardly any weapons, no ammunition and no boots.
The idea of a standing army controlled by the government was anathema but the threat of invasion by foreign powers was ever-present, so the solution was found in the Second Amendment, which reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In other words, citizens should be allowed to own a gun in case they need to turn out and form an army to help defend the nation.
But over the last 230 years the first 13 words have been conveniently forgotten and the legislation used as an excuse to turn America into a country with the highest gun ownership in the world and the highest rate of murder or manslaughter by firearm of any developed nation.
The US is 114th in a list of the 161 most peaceful countries – the UK is at 41 and Ireland is 10th.
The survivors of the Florida shooting demand action but, of course, nothing will be done. Republicans will wait for the outrage to die down so they can go on as normal taking money from the NRA and stoking fears.
Meanwhile, insecure, poorlyeducated, white blokes – the most likely to own a firearm in the US – will rush to the store to buy another big gun.
But it may not be all bad news. Those young survivors – the ones who are acting like adults while the adults act like children – are future voters. At the next presidential election in 2020 they will not be supporting a party that allowed their pals being slaughtered.
Young people, ethnic minorities (who are quickly becoming majorities), women and decent white blokes could make sure Republicans will never get into the White House again.
The Grand Old Party could eventually whither and die.