The phrase “hindsight is 20-20” wasn’t coined by high school students. Pearls of wisdom are the domain of elders who have lived, lost, loved and suffered. The experience of a generation further along in years than millennials and whatever high schoolers are being dubbed know a few things.
And teens also know “a few” things, such as how to get a bunch of likes on Facebook or post a hashtag on Twitter. What teenagers do not know is how to address national gun policy and violence. That begs the question: Why is America letting children take the lead in the gun debate?
The truth is they’re not — plenty of adults are helping them, or rather using them.
Anti-Gun Movement Embraces Parkland Students
The left-leaning media has thoroughly embraced the poorly-formed opinions of Parkland, Florida, students such as David Hogg.
Why not? He fits the profile of what they need in terms of a poster child to lead the gun seizure movement. His snug-fitting designer jacket, neatly jelled hairstyle and raised fist musts certainly overshadow the ideas of mothers and fathers who protect their families with legally purchased and owned firearms. Maybe sketchy media outlets embrace the “F-bombs” these kids drop on air? Maybe it’s the idle threats about the November election, even though they are not yet old enough to vote.
But following the high school tragedy that took 17 lives and national voice given to student advocates, states have been swift to implement legislation that allows the government to kick down doors and take guns away from law-abiding citizens. There have even been op-eds run in national newspapers about repealing the Second Amendment.
A New York Times piece, penned by retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Steven, points to child protests as a watershed moment. He claims we must change the document crafted by the Founding Fathers’ because minors don’t like it any more.
No Justice Stevens, America should not alter the U.S. Constitution because a few thousand kids, many of whom don’t know the difference between a semi-automatic rifle and a revolver, played hooky from school.
The Anti-Gun Media Gets Mileage From Children
Some of the left’s media sources have gone as far as to create charts and graphs about how well the gun dialogue is going since the Parkland children did the talk show circuit. In a piece called “Teenagers are doing the impossible: keeping America’s attention on guns,” Vox media argues that the Parkland high schoolers have buoyed the gun debate more than other spokespeople.
According to Vox, “Five days after the (Parkland) shooting, coverage of it was higher than it was at the same point after the Sandy Hook shootings in 2012. That attention waned a little on Tuesday and a bit more on Wednesday, but was still at relatively high levels.”
The article goes on to argue that “the data seems to suggest that hearing these young survivors not only plead for action, but taking action themselves, is keeping this conversation going.”
It’s difficult to know how reliable “data” is in the age of fake news. But, it may be safe to say that trotting youngsters out in a pseudo-Reality TV forum made for good ratings. Hearing youngsters talk about tragedy, loss and politics simply makes for interesting viewing.
Without selling these kids’ passion short, TV watchers don’t have a lot of unique content to select from. That makes young David Hogg and company something of a novelty. If you think about how popular shows like Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer are, it’s not hard to predict the teens who were inside the Florida school would garner interest and ratings. However, most Americans probably wouldn’t want the Dancing with the Stars winners creating gun policy for them.
It’s Time For Real Grown-Ups To Lead
It’s sad when the anti-gun lobby trots out children to carry their gun seizure banner. Many of these young people get their information from social media and less-than-credible sources. Since the last election, the country has looked on at the dissemination of false propaganda about firearms and the stringent laws already in place. Florida’s U.S. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has even gone as far as to try banning bullets.
In reality, the vast majority of communities have more than ample gun laws on the books. None of them will prevent a bad actor from picking up a weapon and doing harm. Rather that take advantage of scared children who suffered the trauma of losing friends, adults could show more restraint and leadership and focus on keeping these youths safer in schools through security and mental health awareness.
In 20 years, many of these same children you took a day out of school to mill around at gun control rallies will be military veterans, police officers, hunters or just feel safer knowing they have a firearm at home and can protect their children. That hindsight, yeah it’s 20-20.
~ Firearm Daily
