There is an aspect of the firearms issue I rarely, if ever, hear mentioned. School administrators and teachers demonizing for children the tool I carried in a holster on my hip for my entire career. A tool I carried —my gun— to help keep myself and my community safe. Consider the Baltimore School Board recently voting unanimously against Maryland House Bill HB31. The bill would have recinded a previous prohibition and allowed school police officers to carry guns within school buildings.
In Baltimore, from what I understand, there is a school police force that operates under the auspices of the Baltimore Police Department. They are sworn and trained police officers. According to leoaffairs.com, State House Delegate Cheryl D. Glenn, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation to allow armed police said she was disappointed, thought the decision was unwise, and emphasized, “These are sworn police officers. They are not security guards. They have more training than Baltimore police.” Glenn withdrew the bill, citing without the school board’s support, it would not pass.
During the meeting, as leftist adults have taught them to do by example, a group of students essentially hijacked the proceedings. They stood disrespectfully with their backs toward the board members and began chanting, “No guns in schools. We gonna fight for our lives.” They obviously believe the myth that they must fear the cops.
Frustrated with the outburst, board commissioner Cheryl A. Casciani pounded her gavel and announced, “this meeting is officially recessed.” However, since the vote was 10-0 against the measure, the disruption wasn’t enough to knock some sense into Commissioner Casciani.
Del. Glenn said she felt the school board had “succumbed to pressure from the student group.” I’m certain Del. Glenn is right. How many times have we seen officials bow to pressure from leftist bad behavior?
Currently, officers must lock their weapons in a secured box while on duty inside the school. HB31 would have overturned the current prohibition on school police carrying guns. If this doesn’t show the demented thought processes of liberal educators and administrators, I’m not sure what would.
Some people stood up and actually argued the students would be in more danger with armed police officers patrolling their schools. I have a hard time imagining a brain working, or not working, in such a way. Would a bank’s money or a jewelry store’s precious gems be more or less safe with armed or unarmed guards? Don’t we consider our kids to be our precious gems? How does a logical mind come up with such nonsense? Well, that’s the problem; logic doesn’t enter into it.
Pro-gun advocates support the Second Amendment, and some choose to carry guns—to bear arms, to exercise their constitutional right, their God-given right to self-defense. Anti-gun activists do not support the Second Amendment, and they choose not to carry guns—opt to not bear arms, do not support our constitutional rights, and do not support our God-given right to self-defense.
The left is willing to make your self-defense decisions for you, clearly usurping God and nature. They apparently don’t mind risking your and your family’s lives to get their way. And what is their way? More power over your life, over your right to pursue happiness. And, in an oblique conspiracy of the like-minded, government, academic, and media leftists will lie to the people and violate laws, legal principles, and state policies to help pass laws that infringe on your rights. Washington State did this recently when it passed I-1639. It might be a cliché, but for these folks, the ends do indeed justify the means.
This part of the issue we know, and no amount of objective information will change most anti-gun radicals’ minds. As we’ve learned so well, leftist ideologues are intransigent. Think of it this way: Gun advocates are fighting to uphold the people’s rights; gun opponents are fighting to deny the people’s rights. With which group would you rather be associated?
But I guess we shouldn’t forget the left knows what’s good for you better than you do and, even more, they’re willing to bet your and your family’s lives on it. That’s an audacious position and awesome responsibility, isn’t it? Deciding for other people how best to protect themselves and their families—or not let them protect themselves and their families.
As for the demonization of guns, my grandson attended, and my granddaughter now attends, a church-run pre-school. The folks there are wonderful, and their fondness for the children is obvious. However, in their way, they are also teaching the students to revile firearms. They’ve bought into the leftist anti-gun mantra: guns are bad. How can kids, or adults, not extrapolate that if guns are bad so are those who use them. They join the leftist choir as if opposing guns and gun rights is simply “common sense” when, in fact, it is the opposite. Such has been the success of the natural political collusion between Democrats, academia, and the mainstream media.
Of course, it’s not the teachers’ primary focus to teach children guns are bad. They’re not militant leftists providing organized classes in hating firearms. It’s much subtler than that but nevertheless quite effective. Church/school administrators allow leftist political dogma to seep into and infect their religious dogma. They adopt a “virtue-signaling” leftist platform which includes an anti-gun plank. They believe they are doing the “Lord’s work” when in actuality, they are doing the leftists’ work.
In this pre-school, teachers, by policy, will not allow the children to play “police” or “army” games during playground time. Law enforcement and the military are two of the noblest occupations in America. Yet, educators would prevent our children from pretending to be these heroes.
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating (so, get used to it). If God or nature has bestowed on the human being the right to self-defense, i.e., the right to life, then reason tells us the human being must have the right to the most efficient means to accomplish that self-defense. It’s obvious the most efficient common means for self-defense is a firearm. If this weren’t true, law enforcement agencies and the military would issue their personnel something else.
Leftists fool people into believing the anti-gun side’s positions are “common sense.” This is because, in people’s minds, they fear guns because, to them, firearms are an unfamiliar, powerful, and potentially dangerous tool. It’s similar to the fear people have of a car when they first learn to drive. Someone was teaching the person to use an unfamiliar, powerful, and potentially dangerous tool. Once people become familiar with the car, as with firearms, their fear subsides, but, for most people, their careful use of these tools (a car) do not subside. But people don’t demonize the automobile whenever they hear about someone misusing one. Driving drunk, fleeing a bank robbery, reckless driving, or even when they see terrorists have used a motor vehicle to kill innocent people.
Because of their familiarity with cars after driving for a while, people lose their fear but maintain their sense of reason about using the tool. This is what is so frustrating about the firearms issue. Those of us who are familiar with firearms maintain our reason when we think about how they are used by people for good and bad. We don’t demonize the tool because someone has misused it.
Rather than banning guns from more and more places, we should encourage people to become familiar with them. We should teach every child gun safety in school. I’ve taken a couple liberal friends shooting over the years. In each case, the person enjoyed shooting more than they thought they would. Their fear was greatly reduced with the exposure to firearms. And they even took pride in their marksmanship.
School administrators and teachers demonizing guns is lazy thinking. Most have no interest in studying the issue further. They wish to remain belligerently ignorant. They’d rather stay on the leftist bandwagon and continue with the subliminal, and sometimes overt, indoctrination of their students. After all, everyone agrees 3- and 4-year-old kids should not handle guns. But this doesn’t mean teachers should teach kids that guns are bad, even with rules against playing pretend “cops” or “army” games. Just as it would be unreasonable to teach kids that cars are bad.
It grates on me that teachers today are educating our children to believe the tool I carried for work for over two decades is “evil.” The tool that soldiers carry into battle to preserve our nation’s freedom is “wicked.” This indoctrination has been going on for at least the last couple generations, probably longer. Of course, it’s been initiated by leftist ideologues, but it’s also aided and abetted by people, administrators and teachers, who just go along with the leftist bullies—because it’s easier.
If you’re taught from a very young age that guns are bad, if you pass “gun-free-zone” signs around every corner of your school for 13 years (or more with college), and if you’re suspended (or “dispended”) because you bit your Pop Tart into the shape of a gun or threw a fake grenade to fight imaginary intergalactic villains to save the universe, it’s amazing every single kid in this country doesn’t hate guns.
Add to this some “grown-ups,” such as those who belong to or support Black Lives Matter, teaching kids that police officers are hunting them in the streets. What chance do some kids have? We’ve seen how Baltimore politicians such as Marilyn Mosby, the state’s attorney, and former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake infamously sided with violent radicals over the city’s cops and even tried to falsely prosecute six cops. No wonder those kids that disrupted the school board meeting don’t trust cops. They’re adult leaders have taught them to hate police officers.
It’s also no mystery the school board voted the way it did. Did anyone come to speak in support of the proposed bill? Sure, but apparently no one cared enough not to place their stamp of approval on the board’s group-speak conclusion. After all, those people who opposed the board’s leftist position are racists, anyway—even the black speakers, right? Hell, they probably even voted for President Trump.
