Young Voices Challenging the NRA

I just watched CNN's Parkland Town Hall Meeting during which possible changes or solutions were suggested and threshed out by the students & resource persons who were present to prevent future mass school shootings & lost lives. In attendance were the surviving students of the Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, parents, thousands of community members, Senators Marco Rubio & Bill Nelson, Rep. Ted Deutch, a rep from the NRA and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel. Marco Rubio was the lone Republican on center stage.

This is just my own conjecture and I'm not second-guessing God, but perhaps this is part of His Plan to change people's attitude and minds toward guns, hate, violence, politics, and mental health care. The students had shown their brilliance & eloquence, not to mention their brutal honesty, in their questions and comments that they threw at Rubio, the NRA rep & the other politicians in attendance. If you want an honest answer, ask a child. Totally fearless! They just stared Death in the face & lived to tell about it. How are high school students asking Marco Rubio & the NRA rep better & smarter questions than career journalists do? They know this is their one shot at having face time with Rubio. Can you imagine them asking questions to Trump & other Republicans (or some of our BS-ing local politicians) in a press event? I would pay good money to see them take these NRA-funded politicians apart. Their questions are the easy parts. It was the students' refusal to accept the normal BS answers that is remarkable. Also, these kids are in no way corrupted, like many of the U.S. and our local mainstream media people. These high schoolers aren’t beholden to the networks & their oligarch owners & CEOs the way “journalists” are. Journalists are worried about their jobs; the students are worried about their lives, unimaginable pain, and a safe & better future. They also do not work for publishers owned by Republican backers controlling their paychecks. They won't settle for sound bites -- they want answers. Journalists should be taking notes. Funny how they go right to the heart of the matter and refused to accept the standard spin tactics like when Rubio answered one question from a student about what he would do to address the problem. Rubio came up with a wimpy measure, the typical song and dance answer from an NRA backer. The student's comment to Rubio was "That's fine & good but that is just like ONE STEP in a 5K race." I was like, "What the FUDGE! BRAVO!!" accompanied by loud hand claps. The mainstream media corporate whores prefer to sacrifice their integrity to enrich their bank accounts. Career journalists have also their own egos to contend with. Because mainstream media has became gutless in this political environment, they rarely ask the hard questions and let too many talking heads get away with flat out lying. Because they aren’t beholden, these kids are brave & they're willing to call BS when they see it. If the media had been any of these things in 2016, America might not have been stuck with Trump. The price of media silence, cowardice & incompetence is high. Every self-respecting journalist in America should feel shame. They’ve sold their souls for “access” made meaningless by the trade. A strong sense of self-preservation makes you sharpen up quick! I wish our Filipino millennials are as brilliant and as eloquent when talking about social issues. The high school students and their teachers from Stoneman are the perfect poster boys and girls, and the perfect spokespersons for sane and calibrated common-sense gun laws that politicians failed to create because they are beholden to the NRA and gun manufacturers.

Sen. Rubio & Dana Loesch, the NRA representative (they sent a woman rep; so much for NRA boys' bravery), were wildly booed. Marco Rubio got his a$$ handed to him by high school students. When a student asked Rubio (the li'l politico who met little narco) if he will never receive money from the NRA, Rubio beat around the bush by not answering the question but the student wasn't going to have that. So after being pressured by the student some more to answer his question, Rubio was forced to demur. Let that sink it, students. The money from the NRA are more important to Rubio than the lives of the students. Now you know who to campaign against. Sheriff Israel as his parting words to the students said that there is only one way to force the legislators to make assault weapons illegal and that is to VOTE OUT the politicians who do not agree with the students' advocacy.

The Republicans are talking on both sides of their mouth on who's to blame for this tragedy. They keep talking about mental health. But they slashed the budget to fund mental health care and then they blocked the Democrats when they tried to renew the ban on assault weapons during Obama's time in 2012. And because of those moves, the Republicans share the blame for what happened in Florida. I call this crime, murder by proxy.

As for giving credit to Rubio for showing up, oh puhleeze! I suspect that he was instructed by the GOP or Gov. Rick Scott to take one for the team. OH, how heroic of Rubio .... NOT!!!

I like what Gary Cole posted on YouTube regarding the love of guns:

"Obviously many people with hate and paranoia in their hearts, hate truth and compassion. Their faith is firmly rooted in the power of owning instruments of death at any cost. Of course you have the right to self-preservation and to protect your family, but this obsession with gun(s) is idolatry. Idolatry is when you show extreme veneration, adoration, passion, reverence, fetishism and a unnatural devotion to an object, symbol, man or man-made organizations. When guns have become the cornerstone of your existence, you’ve crossed over to paganism. And these innocent victims of gun violence are the sacrifices offered up by the NRA to satiate their lust for profits!"

Many paranoid people keep saying that the government can't wait to take their guns away. Then they conveniently didn't notice that law enforcement didn't rush right in the shooter's house to grab his guns because the authorities have no backing of laws that empower them to make arrests because the NRA & their political backers have time and again been blocking efforts of the Democrats to pass sane gun control laws. Pro-gun people are always screeching about how people want to disarm them, but overwhelmingly I just see people asking for stricter licencing laws, control over what types of gun people can get. You want to own a gun? Fine, but show why you need it, how your going to keep it safe from others, and that you are sane, responsible, law abiding enough to own one. I think Cruz has 7 or 9 rifles. Red flags yan pa lang, di ba?

Ironically, it's the NRA that benefits from mass shooting incidents. Their slogan of 'guns make you safer' panders to the fear of society, and the NRA directly advocates for people to buy and possess guns for their self defense, and to protect others. Therefore, the media coverage of gun crime and violence feeds directly into the NRA core values and principles. The NRA had been blaming everyone or everything else except themselves. But here is an idea - remove the guns that are purely designed for killing people quickly en masse. The excuse of wanting to own them for hunting is BS. It's like fishing with dynamite.

The tide is turning for America. The next, younger generations will never forget and they will rid America of this gun culture. These old conservative men taking blood money from the NRA, and that insane part of their ancient Constitution that allows citizens to be armed as if they are going to war would be on the future generations' cross hairs, so to speak, so less people would be killed using powerful weapons of war. If something doesn't change in terms of gun control laws or the attitude of people on their fascination with their beloved guns, this ad for tourists may not be far behind: "Come to America, and experience the Wild West, or day trip through an urban combat zone ... Bullet proof vests not included."

Trump gets to sit around in his New York ivory tower while school children cower in fear in their classrooms as a killer roam around their school's premises.

The NRA said they are not in favor of increasing the age to own or buy a gun and they will oppose any type of gun ban.