Brunswick Beacon, 09.19.24
School has begun, and a new year of school shootings. A 14-year-old Georgia student used an AR15 his father gave him for Christmas to kill four and wound nine after being interviewed by the Sheriff’s office last year about another school shooting threat.
Georgia has weak gun safety laws, and a gun death rate 39% higher than the national average. Republicans control the offices of governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and both houses of the state legislature. They’ve enacted permitless carry and a deadly Shoot First law that allows a person to kill someone in a public area, even when they can safely walk away from danger.
Donald Trump has controlled the Republican Party since 2016. He’s had help from the National Rifle Association’s endorsement and more than $30 million of NRA money. At an NRA presidential forum, Trump bragged that he took absolutely no action on gun safety while president.
“During my four years, nothing happened!” Trump said. “And there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield!”
Trump was under “great pressure” because, while America’s gun-murder rate dropped dramatically under Clinton and Obama, it soared after Trump took office. Trump made it easier to get guns by rolling back regulations, and gun deaths for kids under 18 soared 50% between 2019 and 2021. The gun-murder rate and gun suicide rates hit their highest levels in decades under Trump.
Trump rejected demands for universal background checks. He told Iowans to “get over” a school shooting in January. JD Vance says, “gun laws [are not] going to solve this problem.” He calls school shootings “a fact of life,”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” said Kamala Harris. “We can take action to protect our children—and we will.”
How many more horrific school shootings will we have to “get over” if Trump and Vance are elected?
Linda McConnell Baker
Leland
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