We as a people cannot allow the actions of crazy people to be used to curtail our rights and our freedoms. Many will argue that we must give in to “common sense” legislation to make us all safer. While that would seem to be the right thing to do, it is little more than accepting defeat in the face of pure unhinged evil.
We cannot cower to the demands of politicians devoted to advancing their political careers by exploiting every crisis that comes along. At no point should we bow to the will of those in our media who cowardly bend a knee to fear because they lack the character to stand opposed to it.
Consider this: We now know that the police in Uvalde, Texas, with all their training, wouldn’t lay down their lives to save the children, yet the parents, with no training, would have. We know this because we saw them desperately try and do so, only to be stopped by the police.
It is a sad reality that the choices of the police that day gave the insane man more time to kill. It took the selfless actions of an off-duty border patrol officer with a borrowed firearm to end it. It is abundantly clear that we cannot rely upon our police to be there for us in our time of need. No one can argue the reality that when literal seconds matter, the police are minutes away.
Disarming ourselves would be tantamount to arming an army of criminals. Making ourselves weaker does not make us safer, so instead of going after our means of self-defense, perhaps we should focus our efforts on identifying those among us who need attention and help.
Let us secure our schools, broaden education to include firearms safety and training, and empower teachers to defend students by giving them the tools and training to do so.
We must take a serious look at how unfettered access to violent video games and online content affects the minds of our youth. If we fear the grooming of our young, then we must accept the simple truth that violent content and social media do also affect our children.
Perhaps instead of funding a foreign war, we should consider funding our police and our schools.
Raymond Williams,
Battle Ground
