You’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, we’ve all seen it. The moment a tragedy or atrocity happens everyone from the Twitteratti to the denizens of D.C. demand that something is done.
These “do somethings” follow the same pattern and have the same priorities. First and foremost, once an event occurs it must immediately be blamed on the party they’re opposed to. Even if the event was something that wasn’t their fault, it’s their fault. If the event happens under the watch of your political opposites, then it’s their fault. If it happens under the watch of your side, then it’s the values of the opposite party that caused it. Either way, the end result is to get people to turn away from them and toward you.
From there, you begin listing ways that you’d fix the problem. Don’t worry about how unrealistic your suggestions are. In fact, the more unrealistic the better, because you’ll continuously fall short which can be blamed on your opponents.
This can apply to almost any situation, be it a pandemic or a mass shooting.
In this case, it’s a mass shooting. The front page of RedState is, as of this writing, filled with disgusting reactions and “look at me” attempts by Democrats to make the deaths of children about them, their agendas, and their narratives.
(WATCH: Beto O’Rourke Crashes Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Press Conference on Uvalde Shooting)
The thing is, there is something we can do, at least when it comes to preventing school shootings, and it has little or nothing to do with restricting law-abiding citizens.
For schools, it should be little more than a funding issue to make them safer. Schools received billions for “COVID relief,” so why not use that money to place more law enforcement officials within them. Moreover, there are organizations that make it their job to go into a school and seek out ways that shooters might get in and how they may behave. They can give recommendations as to how to best prevent shootings. There are programs that train teachers and staff to use firearms as well.
One school directly prepares students on what to do in the event of a shooter, and even trains older students on how to take one down when the opportunity arises.
These solutions are doable and are already being executed in various parts of the country. We have the roadmaps and the know-how. It’s within our ability to do.
Yet too many are resisting these solutions because it doesn’t fit with solutions that won’t and can’t work. They want stricter gun control laws that will do nothing but punish law-abiding citizens. They want gun registration or bans on certain firearms, magazine sizes, and calibers. Or they just want a total and complete abolishment of the 2nd Amendment and a complete ban on firearms.
You might as well be asking for a unicorn to ride in on a magic carpet and hand you a few billion dollars. It’s not happening.
(READ: To Attain A Gun-Free America, You Would Have to Kill These Amendments)
The “do something” argument is two things; it’s either emotional or political and neither of these is a solid basis to truly form solutions from. If you’re looking for real solutions, then real solutions need to be weighed when they’re presented. Too often we watch as these solutions are rejected out of hand for simply not being the ones convenient to a political narrative.
It really puts the “do somethings” in perspective. It makes it pretty clear that a solution isn’t really what they’re looking for. What they’re really after is the outrage. Outrage is a very useful tool. It helps forms camps, and allows for the creation of enemies one must fight against. It dehumanizes and others.
The day an issue is truly solved is a really bad day for them.
