The Wrong Template to Stop School Shootings
Whenever a mass murder happens at a school, the usual suspects line up with their bogus “solutions.”
The Abundant Life Christian School community in Madison, Wisconsin, is devastated today, mourning the horrific murders of a student and a teacher at the small school on Monday morning. Six others were wounded (two are in critical condition) when a female student, age 15 (not 17 as initially reported), opened fire with a 9mm handgun before killing herself.
Nearly every American was united in thinking, Not again.
Many of us were reminded immediately of one particular shooting — the one in March 2023 at The Covenant School in Nashville. In that case, a “transgender”-identifying female murdered six at a Christian school, and she was motivated by radical and hateful left-wing ideology to compound her gender-related mental illness.
Madison was partially different, at least in the sense that the killer did not use an AR-15 and was not obviously gender-confused. Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes went so far as to incredulously respond to that question by saying, “I don’t think that’s important at all. I don’t think whatever happened today has anything to do with how she or he or they may want to identify.” I beg to differ, as it speaks to the mental state of the killer. In any case, she was reportedly enthralled with school shooters and motivated by radical and hateful left-wing ideology, leading her to murder Christians.
The victims have not yet been identified, though the killer has been. As is our practice, we do not name mass murderers.
Unfortunately, when a murder fits the school shooting template, the same actors trot out their political talking points.
“We need Congress to act. Now,” said Joe Biden in what read like a prepackaged statement with a few blanks to fill in when a shooting happens. “It is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence,” he continued. “We cannot continue to accept it as normal.”
His “solution” is the same constitutionally infringing and worthless stuff he routinely trots out. “Congress must pass commonsense gun safety laws: Universal background checks. A national red flag law. A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”
Kamala Harris put out her own statement, recalling “12 years ago when someone armed with a weapon of war walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.” She then pushed the same “commonsense solutions” Biden did: “Make background checks universal, pass red flag and safe storage laws, and ban assault weapons.”
Neither of these two gun-grabbers waited to find out if any of their proposals were even remotely relevant to this case. Yet here’s what everyone already did know: Murder is illegal. Students bringing firearms to school is illegal. People under the age of 18 possessing handguns is illegal.
None of those hard and fast laws prevented this girl or any other assailant from taking lives. How and why would any of the Democrats’ proposals suddenly change that?
The killer wouldn’t have gone through a background check, universal or virtually universal. She didn’t use an “assault weapon.” We don’t know yet whether her magazine was standard capacity of generally anywhere from seven to 15 rounds, or whether it was some sort of extended magazine.
None of that matters to Democrats, though, since the point for them is the politics and the tyranny of limiting firearm ownership.
Making this even worse for Joe Biden is his utter hypocrisy. Less than three weeks ago, he pardoned his son, Hunter, for numerous and unspecified crimes over a period of nearly 11 years. Among the specific crimes were three gun felonies. But he wants to talk tough about gun laws for the rest of us. He also just pardoned 39 others and commuted 1,500 sentences for some pretty awful people, including some who harmed children.
To keep things rated G and related to Christmas, I’ll just say, Bah. Humbug.
Finally, note that after the shocking assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, virtually no one said anything about banning guns. Maybe that’s because the usual suspects were too busy excusing or cheering that particular murder.
This isn’t about guns. It’s about culture, mental health, and ideology.
In the meantime, I’ll join my fellow Christians in praying for the families who lost loved ones or endured the trauma of surviving yet another senseless murderous assault.
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