PA Bill Number: HB1472
Title: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contributions ...
Description: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contrib ...
Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT
Last Action Date: Apr 22, 2024
Anti-Gun Students Back Away From Pushing Gun Control :: 05/15/2019
March For Our Lives is unabashedly an anti-gun group. That’s been clear since the group popped up out of the Parkland aftermath. We all know what it stands for and no one is fooling anyone with regard to its purpose.
It wants to destroy the Second Amendment.
However, the Arizona branch of the organization has come to understand that’s not going to happen in that state, so it’s trying something different.
A student-led group that tried to get lawmakers to enact gun control last year is refocusing on something more attainable.
Jordan Harb, a leader of the March for Our Lives movement, said Monday his organization remains convinced that Arizona needs to crack down both on who has access to firearms as well as dealing with the kind of guns that can fire off many rounds.
“I wouldn’t say that we have softened but rather changed our focus on something that’s actually able to be done,” he said. And Harb, a Mesa high school student, said the gun-control measures his group pushed last year — measures the Republican-controlled Legislature did not enact — are “still on our policy agenda.”
What that leaves for the moment are specific and he believes immediate needs, like the lack of guidance counselors and social workers on campus as well as dealing with issues of bullying and abuse.
The announcement comes as the state superintendent of public instruction, Kathy Hoffman, announced the creation of a School Safety Task Force. The task force will, unsurprisingly, look at ways to make schools safer.
That is a fair effort.
It’s funny though. When we started talking about the need to harden schools right after Parkland, the March For Our Lives crowd was beside themselves. They were livid that we’d talk about school security right after an incident at a school.
Of course, what they wanted was gun control. They weren’t upset at the discussion of school security in and of itself. They were mad that we weren’t willing to give them what they wanted but instead saw a different solution to the problem.
The truth is, if schools are going to continue to be targeted, it makes much more sense to harden them and make them less attractive as targets. If nothing else, this will protect children from these kinds of senseless attacks.
Unfortunately, the anti-gun crowd couldn’t be content with that. It makes sense since they make their gains primarily in the aftermath of a school shooting. They get an influx in donations, more press, more attention, and more anti-gun laws. Why in the world would they want to prevent school shootings?
I’m sure someone will say I’m unfair. To be honest, I don’t think any of them think this way. Not consciously, at least. Yet it still makes perverse sense if you look at it, enough so that it’s hard not to escape the conclusion that they like these things happening.
But in Arizona, the March For Our Lives crowd is far more realistic. They understand that while they want gun control, it’s not happening in their state. Not now, anyway. So instead, they work on what might be achievable, something that might also make students far safer.
Who knows, it might even be enough to save some lives. A crazy idea, I know, but one that just might work.
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/
https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2019/05/14/anti-gun-students-back-away-pushing-gun-control/
