Screaming at Dana Loesch Won’t Prevent Dead Kids
The Holy Grail of anti-gun advocates is nothing short of a full repeal of the Second Amendment.
The anti-gun lobby and the establishment media have reshaped the debates about protecting schools by shifting the conversation from exploring ways to secure those schools to a narrative that implicitly makes themselves the heroes by banning guns. And if you support them, you’re the good guy.
But no hero can exist in the absence of a villain. So, they have consciously and collectively chosen to make Dana Loesch both their proverbial villain and also their pinata. To them, Loesch, a tangible representative for the amorphous 6 million member National Rifle Association, is nothing more than a savagely dehumanized embodiment of their shared manufactured rage.
Since 2016, the left has done a stellar job of characterizing their political opposition in the most vile terms imaginable, allowing themselves the freedom to launch verbal (and even physical) attacks against anyone with whom they disagree and still walk away with a clear conscience. Amazing straw men are what they’ve created. With Trump supporters, they say they’re battling Nazis. With Loesch, they think they are courageously slaying some magical, all-powerful, fire-breathing NRA dragon. And, on the issue of firearms, the decision to grossly demonize their opposition is recycled from their playbook with precision every time there is an incident where a group of white kids gets shot.
No, this isn’t a piece about race. But all cards are on the table when gun activists that allege to support safety for all children blindly ignore dozens of weekly shootings on the south side of Chicago, yet sponsor national protests when a just few kids in the suburbs are fatally wounded. The Chicago Tribune reported at least 1,700 people have been shot so far in 2018 in Chicago. Where is the outrage for these black people being permanently separated from their kids? This is no minor inconsistency, because it speaks to the very nature of the shameful culture of grandstanding and virtue signaling that has pervaded the American left.
A quick trip to Loesch’s Twitter page will reveal disparaging comments to her: “Dana Loesch is a deceitful unattractive C*** who hopefully winds up in Prison sooner rather than later. Hopefully her ignorant closeted homosexual husband Chris goes to (sic) and is a– raped daily.”
It shouldn’t have to be said that this type of derision is completely unacceptable for adults, particularly in a conversation about setting public policy.
Threads and comments like this are far too commonplace. What’s missing are voices from the left proposing real solutions that will have an impact on actually saving people’s lives.
Activists who publicly pride themselves on pretending to care about kids more than the rest of America seem to spend more time demonizing law-abiding citizens than they do securing schools or finding ways to reduce crime. After all, the real question isn’t about guns; it is how to stop children from committing murder. And the answer to that question is much more difficult to come by, which is why it is avoided at all costs by anti-gun activists.
What’s easy is looking at someone you’ve never even met and labeling her a “child killer” or “NRA whore” while offering no workable solutions to advance your cause. What’s difficult is to face the core issue and address how America has managed to create a culture that makes kids want to commit murder instead of play sports or other childhood activities.
And who plays the greatest role in shaping culture? Hollywood, the establishment media and academia — the very people screaming the loudest to ban guns and not address their own culpability in this violence.
What they don’t scream about are reports from the CDC that show defensive uses of firearms save between 500,000-3,000,000 lives per year. Nor do they provide wall-to-wall coverage of incidents where lives are saved by a “good guy with a gun,” like when Stephen Willeford saved lives at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, by using his own rifle to end a mass shooting. And they pay almost no attention the large number of Parkland students (including Kyle Kashuv) and other students across the nation (like Breanna Spencer) who support the Second Amendment. They simply push their thinly veiled agenda.
Leftist activists not only erode their own credibility, but also perform a staunch public disservice by blaming everyone other than the person who actually pulled the trigger in a mass shooting. Vilifying Dana Loesch, the NRA or any other innocent third party does nothing to move the nation toward solutions that prevent murder or to secure America’s schools.
“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr once said. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions.”
That speaks volumes about one half of America’s current gun debate. Myths like the “gun show loophole” should be easily dispelled, because they’re not true. Thinking a teenager will buy a $100,000 3-D printer and manufacture an entire rifle worth $900 is an idea beyond laughable. And believing that the next gun law passed will finally be the one that does the trick is demonstrably foolish.
Criminals don’t care about the law; that’s what makes them criminals. Murder is already illegal. Attempted murder is already illegal. Assault with a deadly weapon is already illegal. Furthermore, the assault weapons ban of 1994 wasn’t renewed in 2004 because studies showed it hadn’t been effective in reducing violent crime.
Anger can be an effective tool. Misdirected anger, however, is not only destructive; it does nothing to bring about a solution for the source of that anger. I can’t imagine the feeling of having lost a loved one to a murderer, but while our feelings may sometimes drive human behavior, they cannot be allowed to override lucidity. Human beings are not animals for this very reason.
This is the first generation of people in our country that has actively campaigned against their own rights. If you lobby for the removal of guns or the repeal of the Second Amendment you are depriving yourself of the right to defend yourself and your family from someone so vicious they care about neither your rights nor your family. You actually empower a deranged person willing to watch your warm blood run across their cold hands without the slightest effect on their conscience.
You may be loving — or, at least, you may think you are — but the criminal out there willing to savagely murder you or a member of your family is not. You cannot defend against guns with hugs.
The harsh reality for people who think banning guns is the solution to gun violence is that there is simply no place where you are guaranteed safety — you cannot legislate away evil. All you can do is prepare yourself for it and hope you never encounter it. While the truth may not be comforting, that’s part of what we accept as adults.
It’s time to restore sanity to this debate. Demonizing the NRA and its members is completely counterproductive, and anti-gun activists should learn what the rest of us already know: Screaming at Dana Loesch won’t prevent wrongful gun deaths or bring back dead kids.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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