See how they did that?
Gun lobbyists unable to stop people talking about guns shifted the conversation into a web of diverging directions.
When 17 people, mostly kids, were killed in Florida by a crazy teen with easy access to a military weapon, the NRA’s toadies tried once again to stop the obvious conversation like a school child dropped by an AR-15.
Just like after Columbine and Sandy Hook and all the others, the gun-nuts declared anything beyond an offer of “thoughts and prayers” inappropriate. Their standard refrain has been that talking “too soon” about guns after a fatal shooting is “insensitive” and “disrespectful” of parents of dead children and of survivors.
Except this time, the kids themselves called BS – literally, in fact.
The kids said the unthinkable out loud: thoughts and prayers are useless without action.
The kids stood tall and started the conversation themselves, all the adults cowering in the corners be damned.
Their conversation commenced with children telling adults that it’s dangerous to play with guns, and that when an entire society becomes mesmerized by them, the safety is off.
Children of America told their parents what has become understood as a basic truth in nearly every other country in the world: guns don’t kill people, people with easy access to guns kill people.
The Stoneman Douglas School survivors had the unmitigated gall to declare that guns were the real problem, and they demanded action.
And you’ve got to hand it to the NRA drogues, they responded with action.
They faked some screen captures and found a kid with the same name as one of the pesky survivors in California and declared that he’d pretended being part of a shooting there, and claimed that all the mouthy little brats were paid actors seeking to score political points off the tragedy of 17 dead.
People talked about how preposterous and disgusting the claim was… instead of talking about limiting access to guns.
When a dad and his kid altered an email, people talked about the travesty of it… instead of talking about limiting access to guns.
When a president steered the conversation onto armed teachers, everyone started talking about their outrage… instead of talking about limiting access to guns.
Yet the survivors keep bringing the conversation back to gun laws, despite the NRA’s lawmakers’ best efforts.
You know how it is: some kids just never learn.