When Washington Post Columnist E.J. Dionne wrote that the National Rifle Association’s power is waning in a piece headlined “It’s the beginning of the end for the gun lobby’s power,” was he really trying to sound “Taps” over the Second Amendment?
By no small coincidence, Dionne’s Op-Ed came on the heels of an appearance by Polk County, Fla. Sheriff Grady Judd on Fox and Friends Saturday, during which the career lawman endorsed the idea of arming volunteer teachers to provide a first line of defense for students in an emergency.
Buried in Dionne’s diatribe is a chilling observation that must be read more than once to fully grasp what he is saying: “And let’s concede up front that the vast overrepresentation of rural states in the Senate tilts the system, undemocratically, toward those who claim that government is powerless to take meaningful steps against mass killings. The fact that Wyoming and Idaho have as many Senate votes as New York and California underscores the challenges that remain.”
The system may be “undemocratic,” but it certainly fits in well with a Constitutional Republic. It is designed to prevent tyranny of the majority against the minority, or in this case the conservative states where a large share of the nation’s 100 million gun owners resides, or are scrambling to move to because of what they see as anti-gun tyranny now in motion on both coasts.
Dionne also confirmed what gun owners already knew. People who don’t own guns voted for Democrats “overwhelmingly” last month. Meanwhile, he wrote, “People from households with guns voted Republican, but by a narrower margin…” It’s always easier to trample on the other person’s rights, Second Amendment activists frequently observe.
Meanwhile, down in Florida where a state commission established to investigate the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, anti-gunners are still recovering from one of that commission’s recommendations in its draft report. Arming teachers who volunteer for that responsibility, pass a background check and go through training, is a proposal that gives gun prohibitionists heartburn.
But Sheriff Judd, speaking to the Fox news panel Saturday morning, had this observation: “When seconds count, minutes don’t matter. We need somebody there, in the building that second that can protect the students.”
Anti-gun Florida Rep. Ted Deutch, a Democrat, insisted in a tweet that there is no evidence armed teachers will make schools safer, Fox reported.
“He’s interested in headlines,” the sheriff said in rebuttal, “I’m interested in saving children’s’ lives and we can do that. If a teacher is uncomfortable or doesn’t want to have a gun, they should never have a gun. No one is making them.”
Lawmen like Judd, and those in Washington State at the far corner of the Lower 48 who are refusing to actively enforce another restrictive gun control initiative was just passed by voters, may be bringing genuine common sense to a debate in which anti-gunners are constantly demanding “common sense gun laws.” Unlike the gun control crowd, Judd and his contemporaries understand that honest armed citizens are not the problem, criminals are.
And that was essentially the reaction from a Washington Post reader posted Monday morning. Writing as “cclaxton0,” the reader stated, “The biggest mistake we are making is blaming guns instead of blaming human malevolence. We don’t blame vehicles when drunk drivers kill people…we blame the behavior. The root causes of malevolence are what needs solutions. And, worse, when we focus resources on the symptom instead of the cause, it is wasted resources and inefficient…By focusing on gun control we are not fixing the root causes and malevolence actors will just find other weapons to use.”
Dionne concluded that, “There is much more work to do, but those who undertake it can know that they now have the wind at their backs.”
The wind may be at their backs, but the constitution just might hit them in the face.
