The only hope American children have for living long enough to become adults is to do something to save themselves from those of us who already are.
Seventeen more kids and teachers were killed last week at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and we are already proving we don’t have the moral character and political will to protect them
Right on cue Paul Ryan, Republican Speaker of the House, responded by saying, “I don’t think that means you then roll that conversation into taking away citizens’ rights – taking away a law-abiding citizen’s rights. Obviously this conversation typically goes there. Right now, I think we need to take a breath and collect the facts.”
Ryan is once again showing more concerned about gun rights that are not in jeopardy than he is in protecting America’s children.
Frankly, it is sickening to hear such political garbage, and thank God our kids know it.
They want a ban on assault rifles, and that should be just the beginning.
And they are serious, with plans for a march on Washington and possibly boycotting schools across the country until politicians meet their demands.
Here are 15 reasons why they should take action.
(1) According to the Congressional Research Service, Americans own approximately 357 millions guns, which is seven million more than the whole population.
(2) According to the Center for Disease Control, the United States has more than 35,000 gun deaths a year, including seven children/teens per day, with 1,637 having been killed in 2016. For every person killed there are two who are injured.
(3) A recent study of World Health Organization data published in the American Journal of Medicine reported that, among high-income nations, 91 percent of children younger than 15 who were killed by bullets lived in the United States.
(4) England and Wales banned private ownership of semiautomatic and pump-action firearms and now average 60 gun deaths a year.
(5) Kids in other countries play the same video games and see the same movies U.S. kids do, but can still go to school without worrying about being shot.
(6) Guns laws in other nations do not prevent their citizens from owning guns, they just regulate how it is done.
(7) What people who insist guns don’t kill people, only people kill people mean is that Americans are more violent than people in other countries.
(8) “A well regulated militia” in the Second Amendment refers to state militias under the control of governors because the newly formed government had no standing army. In 1903 all state militias were merged into the National Guard.
(9 Any discussion of Second Amendment rights that ignores the information in number 8 will lead to a failure to understand why the Founders included “the right to bear arms” in the Second Amendment.
(10) There has never been a single proposal in Congress or in state legislatures that would prohibit Americans from owning guns. Not one.
(11) The NRA was formed to provide education about gun safety, but morphed into a propaganda organization to promote the sale of guns and rifles that benefits gun manufacturers who then give millions to the NRA.
(12) The NRA stokes people’s fears that the government is trying to take their guns with propaganda slogans like, “If they can ban one, they can ban them all,” that was the theme of its 2015 annual convention.
(13) Ninety-six percent (96%) of all the money the NRA gives to politicians goes to Republicans.
(14) Blaming gun violence and mass shootings on the mentally ill is political, not factual. Have they committed crimes? Yes, but studies have shown that “other risk factors including past trauma (e.g., physical abuse), substance abuse, domestic violence, a history of incarceration, parental criminal history, economic stress, as well as access to firearms” play a much bigger role (Elly Vintiadis, Ph.D, “Minding The Mind).
(15) Responsible gun owners are not responsible for gun violence, but by believing NRA propaganda many of them are standing in the way of doing anything about it.
What these facts prove is that we reached the point of enough being enough a long time ago, and our children are tired of it, tired of us, in fact.
They know we have chosen to be a violent society.
That is why they need to do something to save themselves from us.
They deserve our support.
It’s time for every adult in this country to choose our kids over guns.
linnposts.com 
Jan, thank you. This is important history to keep in mind – why the right to bear arms was established at that given point in history and how the conditions are vastly different now. Hopefully the lost Florida lives will not be in vain if it creates the public pressure for our elected officials to do the right thing and outlaw automatic assault weapons in the hands of citizens not performing military duties.
Jane
That is the hope. Thanks, Jane.
If you listening carefully to the GOP and Libertarians position on guns, this is what you hear – We can’t do anything to prevent school massacres, so stop complaining and just let the children die!
Yep. You nailed it, Rollie.
You need to stop reciting the same old lines and name calling. They’re NOT working!!!! Almost every point you state is either an outright lie or has such a political twist to it, it is laughable. I could dispute most of them but will not waste your time or mine. You’ve probably heard “Figures lie and liars figure”.
How about some new ideas by going back down memory lane. The days of Ossie and Harriett, June, Beaver, Andy, Opie or Roy and Trigger. Yes, I said “trigger”. For those that don’t know, Trigger was Roy’s horse, not a dog whistle or anything racist.
Days when we taught VALUES. Guns were not a toys. They were used to kill the “BAD” guys, deer, quail and even an occasional opossum! Days when little boys and girls played “Cops and robbers”. Ahhh, back in the days when Cops were the “good” guys and the FBI was feared because they enforced ALL laws.
Back in the day when you could speak your religion in public without someone suing you for it. The day when you could tell someone of the opposite sex that they looked nice and you weren’t trying to get in their pants. You just really thought they “looked nice”. Nothing hidden!
The day when abortion was meant for rape or incest, mothers health. Not because the baby might not be the correct sex, or right color of hair. The day LIFE meant something. Teaching a woman to have control over her body meant she had to control her own legs first……Not killing her babies willy-nilly.
Illegal drugs were hard to find. Not in every school or on every street corner. OH, I forgot, there is a “sign” in front of every school. That has stopped drugs there!!! OH…. its right next to the no gun sign. Good…we’ve got that problem fixed….there’s a LAW that covers that one.
The day when 90% of Hollywood meant something besides horror, glorifying violence. Nothing but guns, guns and more guns with no apparent plot but GUNS. I’ll put video games in this category.. Hmmm…..is someone doing this to fit their agenda…
Days when we taught our children to respect our elders. We respected them, called them DR. MR. MRS. MISS. I’m to old to learn all of the new ones and don’t really care. Address all humans with respect and you will get what you dish out.
I’ll stop there, but could go on……
Fix the gun problem with teaching our children (and some adults) values, either family, religious, social or whatever value. If you don’t or won’t get my point. Then go ahead and call me names and make some more laws. Like Dr. Phil says, “How’s that working for ya?”
Ah yeh, JM. Sure do miss that Jim Crow era. Life was so good when African Americans and women understood their place in society and I could hunt rabbits with a semi-automatic rifle without being harassed.
Just kidding. I didn’t have a semi-automatic rifle. We didn’t need weapons like that back then.
Please check out the fundraising raffle by the gun shop in Neosha, Missouri. I trust your words and access more than mine.Thank you. Lou
Will do. Lou. Thank you.
Bravo! Yes, it will be our children who raise the bar, the voices of reason, who elevate their unalienable right to life over all others touted. (I think JM sees the America we “think” we are but in reality are not . e.g. I’ve heard people who have lived in other countries say that Trump IS what they have long seen America to be from their point of view.)
It’s not only semi-automatic firearms and pump action shotguns that are banned in my country, Jan. After the Dunblane school massacre in March 1996, Parliament passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act, 1997, which banned all types of firearms, except for shotguns, muzzle loading guns and antique firearms. Although we had a killing spree in 2010, we haven’t had a school shooting since Dunblane. In Britain, there’s a consensus opinion that you’ve no business to have a firearm in your possession at all, and that any carriage of firearms should be the preserve either of the armed services of the Crown, or specialised branches of the Police. This is understood to be the price we pay for (largely) unarmed policing by consent in Britain.
Nigel, this is helpful to know, even though it confirms my worst fears, that we Americans choose gun possession over the safety of our children. We want to blame everything except guns, denying that they are the key factor in the difference between us and the rest of the Western world when it comes to gun deaths. Adults choosing guns over their own children is about as irrational as it gets. But the NRA and its supporters refuse to believe this is what they are doing, and there is no hope of changing their minds. “But as for me and my kin, we will serve the Lord,” or, in today’s parlance, we are with the kids.
Thanks Jan, If the adults don’t have the will to stand up to the NRA maybe our youth do. I find hope in them although there is likely to be many more deaths before modt of them can vote. The connection between availability of guns and gun violence is indisputable. The lack of concern for our children in this gun crazy nation is gut wrenching.
To support what you said, Wilbur, current American adults have shown we don’t care about its kids. We have destroyed the environment and denied it. We have created a violent culture and denied it. We have funded weapons of mass destruction at record levels, but refused to fund the education of our own children. We pay millions of dollars to athletes to entertain us and more millions to people who run the leagues and own the teams, but refused to pay teachers a livable salary. And so we naturally blame everything but ourselves when mass shootings kill our youth. They are tired of our empty rhetoric and lame excuses as if the Second Amendment is more important than their lives. So I am with them on this issue. I believe they are right and we are wrong, and there is nothing any adult can say to change that fact.
Amen. Well said.
We were out of town and Nolan read your piece out loud from the computer and I asked … from the Post ? the NYT ? He said….Those are the profound words of your buddy Jan. It should be published in a paper. Very well said.
My heart is breaking over it all.
But the youth ( mine and all others) light a small candle in my soul.
I have always thought Nolan was a wise man. Just kidding, but it still might be worth sharing, if only to add something different to the debate that is raging in our country, and to offer an anti-dote to the dangerous foolishness coming from the White House. Thanks for sharing this, Dixcy.