By: Aaron Manuel, Columnist
After the most recent school shooting, it is clear that we can no longer sit by and watch this happen again.
We can’t be idle. We can’t ignore what happened. We must do something. We need to respond. We need to stand up. We need to take action. What action, you ask? Well… I don’t know! But now is the time to act! Oh, I remember now what my favorite politician parroted- I mean, bravely called for; we need to enact “reasonable gun regulations.” Yeah, that sounds reasonable!
What gun regulations exactly? Umm… how about an assault weapons ban? All the news anchors talked about how terrible and deadly assault weapons are. What’s an assault weapon? Especially that AR-15 one I always hear about. Clearly the people manufacturing AR-15s want defenseless kids to be gunned down; it isn’t like guns can be used for any purpose other than homicide. Ban all of them!
What, you say that would require the confiscation of millions of guns and probably a civil war? No way; when the government bans something, everyone just gets rid of them voluntarily. Like drugs!
Look, at the very least, we need to ban semiautomatic weapons. The thought that someone can just squeeze a trigger once and shoot a hail of bullets into a crowd is just disgusting. What, you say that’s not what a semiautomatic weapon is? You say that’s an automatic weapon? Well gee, they sound really similar, so semiautomatic weapons must be just as bad. Ban them all!
And as for those gun-loving Second Amendment puritans, they have no idea what they’re talking about. Clearly, the Founding Fathers could never have envisioned our modern guns. Therefore, the Second Amendment only applies to muskets! The same thing is true of all the other amendments too; obviously, you don’t have freedom of speech unless you use an ink quill pen or a printing press.
And as for this idea that guns are an important check on government tyranny, that’s just those paranoid right-wingers with their tinfoil hats. Why worry about what could happen in the far future when something upsetting has happened right now? Besides, the idea that a fascist dictatorship could ever rise in America is absurd. Also, Donald Trump is a fascist… But if he ever takes over, we can defeat him with love, not with guns.
And lastly, if you disagree with anything I’ve said in this article, then that must mean you don’t care about the murder of innocent children!
Does any of the above sound painfully familiar? Come on, people. We can talk about this in a civil manner, or we can keep up the nonsense in this article. There are clearly caveats to every issue, especially one as broad-based and important as this one. Second Amendment supporters don’t want dead children, they just sincerely believe that this discussion is one of a fundamental constitutional right, and that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Lying about this to serve your agenda is an unbelievably morally bankrupt thing to do.