Instead of condemning lawmakers who refuse to make laws that might reduce the slaughter of schoolchildren, we critics of these legislators should put ourselves in their shoes. They have children of their own—they can imagine the anguish of parents who send their kids off in the morning with lunch bags and retrieve them in the afternoon in body bags. They have no more use than we do for the sullen, misfit killers; like the rest of us, they wish them gone. But there’s that devilish Second Amendment, to which they’re philosophically attached—not to mention politically and financially. You don’t knock down the pillars holding up a civilization and not expect the ceiling to land on all our heads. Children, however much we love them, are more expendable than the rights we hold dear. There are millions of kids, but only ten sentences to the Bill of Rights.
The time is ripe for our lawmakers to call these losers out. I propose they create a distraction. “If you want to pick on somebody,” they need to say, stepping forward and pumping up their chests, “pick on us. Leave the kids alone. Shoot up city hall. Shoot up the statehouse. Hell, shoot up Congress. If you dare. ‘Cause we’ll be waiting for you.”
