Thursday, February 22, 2018
By Gary Bauer
CNN's Ambush
Last night, under the guise of a town hall debate on gun policy and school safety, CNN ambushed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch. The crowd was obviously packed with gun control activists and the questions were scripted.
Rubio and Loesch were repeatedly harangued by the questioners. They were called bad parents and compared to the murderer, Nikolas Cruz. Jake Tapper, the so-called "moderator," did little to rein in the mob.
One of the survivors of the Parkland school shooting, Colton Haab, refused to attend the town hall. That was a real shame because that audience could have learned a lot from him.
As we previously reported, Haab is a member of the Junior ROTC program at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. His training and quick thinking helped to save the lives of dozens of students. But Haab backed out of last night's event when CNN insisted he ask a scripted question instead of his own.
For Americans tuning in at home, there was something to be learned from that sorry spectacle. It was a demonstration of the left's true character, which is anything but tolerant.
Whenever the left says it wants a "national conversation" on issues like race and guns, it doesn't mean a real conversation. The left wants a national lecture where conservatives are told to sit down and shut up.
Sadly, what America witnessed last night on CNN is just a small example of what is happening in school classrooms and on college campuses every day.
One source of frustration in this debate is the left's intentional use of false facts. The much maligned AR-15 is not an "assault weapon" or an automatic weapon. The federal government began heavily regulating automatic weapons, or what we think of as machine guns, in the 1930s. The production of machine guns was banned in 1986.
An AR-15 is a semi-automatic weapon. It fires only one round when you pull the trigger. If you ban that, the next step is to ban most hunting rifles or firearms used for self-defense.
The most logical solution is greater security at our schools. Limit the number of entry points and post armed guards. Have you tried to walk into an airport or virtually any government building lately? You can't help but notice the obvious presence of metal detectors and security guards.
Yet, it is striking that the most logical solution is most vociferously opposed by the left. Why is that? Because it doesn't advance the left's agenda of repealing the Second Amendment and banning civilian fire arms.
In spite of CNN's attempt to stack the deck at last night's town hall, there is no national consensus on gun control. The latest Rasmussen poll finds that Americans are not clamoring for more limits to our Second Amendment rights.
Asked what they thought the impact of stricter gun control laws would be, 39% of adults said that stricter gun control laws would decrease violent crime, 39% said they would make no difference, while 15% said they would increase violent crime. Moreover, 58% of those surveyed expressed doubts about the government's ability to fairly enforce gun laws.
The Assault On Faith
One of the most disturbing reactions to the Parkland school shooting has been the left's intolerant and ugly assault on faith. Sincere people who offered their prayers after this tragedy have been harassed and insulted.
It is no coincidence that so-called "progressives" are combining their attack on the Second Amendment with an attack on the First Amendment -- two central pillars of American exceptionalism.
I watched one of the big student protests this week. When one of the leaders yelled out, "Prayers don't do anything to stop school shootings," the kids roared their approval.
Of course, the teenagers buying into this sound bite sentimentality are wise 15 and 16 year-olds who really know how the world works. Seriously, someone needs to tell that young man that he has no idea whether prayer works or not.
How could he possibly know how many school shootings have been prevented because millions of people are praying for the safety of our children? How could he possibly know if any lives were spared last week because people were praying?
And does he really want to tell the parents who are burying their children now that their prayers are worthless?
Christians understand that we have free will and that we live in a fallen world. Some people might use their free will to kill fellow students. Some people will use their free will to save their fellow students during a school shooting.
Prayer cannot repeal free will. God allows man to follow his own desires. But I believe prayer works in ways that we do not fully comprehend on this Earth. It also comforts and heals.
It is sad but telling that so many on the left feel it is necessary to attack the faith of millions of Americans after such tragedies.
Celebrity physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson mocked Christians with this tweet: "Evidence collected over many years, obtained from many locations, indicates that the power of Prayer is insufficient to stop bullets from killing school children."
For those who worship at the altar of science, here is a fairly easy study to do: Look at the shooters who have attacked American schools in recent decades. Identify how many of them were Bible-believing Christians who prayed and how many were into dark, anti-religious secular, humanist philosophies.
I believe any fair study will find that what we ought to be asking is how we can get more of our children to believe in a loving God and spend more time praying. I guarantee that the more our children embrace faith the fewer school shootings there will be.
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