Sacramento, Feb. 15, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) has issued the following statement concerning yesterday’s tragic shooting of innocent people at a Florida high school:
We grieve for our fallen American brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters who lost their lives at the hands of an evil killer in yesterday’s horrific mass murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the victims, the community of Parkland, Florida, and all those affected by this horrific and senseless murder of innocent people.
It is both heartbreaking and infuriating to see that, once again, opportunistic politicians and the craven gun control lobbyists who pay them would rather leverage this tragedy to push their dangerous agenda than to take meaningful steps to protect America’s students and teachers. But the crimson thread in attacks on our school campuses is not the methodology or motive of the killers, but the lack of truly effective security measures and an irrational reliance on mythical “gun-free zones” to keep armed violent criminals out.
Time and time again, we see that evil and insane people intent on causing death, injury, and chaos simply ignore the thousands of federal, state, and local criminal laws that prohibit acts like murder, terrorism, assault, and illegally carrying guns onto school grounds—and wreak havoc until they voluntarily end their attack, commit suicide, or are stopped by a law-abiding hero....usually one that is armed.
Yet, instead of deploying serious and effective safety measures at our schools, the too-common refrain of the anti-gun fetishists is to attack the rights of law-abiding people. America’s legislative buildings, courthouses, airports, and government offices are protected by robust physical security measures, controlled ingress, and weapon detection devices—backstopped, just in case, by law-abiding people with firearms. But too many schools have little-to-no real ability to deter, repel, or quickly stop a violent attacker before innocent lives are lost. Are our children and teachers less worthy of effective security measures than our legislators, judges, and government agency workers? We think not.
Earlier today, President Donald Trump said that “no child, no teacher should ever be in danger in an American school.” We agree. But until our state and local governments enact laws that actually protect our children and teachers with real physical security barriers, controlled access to school grounds, and armed quick-response officers on every campus, our children and the people entrusted to care for them at places of learning will remain at risk.
As we have said before, law-abiding gun owners are not responsible for evil or insane killers who use firearms in their immoral acts, just as peaceable Muslims are not responsible for radical Islamic terrorists flying planes into our buildings and killing thousands, slaying hundreds in bomb blasts, or even running over dozens with vehicles. We reject the idea that the American people and our fundamental human right to keep and bear arms for self-defense must suffer for the crimes of the wicked.
The right to keep and bear arms, like freedom of speech and the right to due process, is a bright-line rule that separates the people from tyranny and servitude. Our nation’s founders, and their Reconstruction-era counterparts, wisely took great pains to protect fundamental rights like those contained in the First, Second, and Fourteenth Amendments in the very textual threads of our social fabric—not because they are benign, but because they are both inherently dangerous and necessary to an enduring free Republic.
Firearms Policy Coalition demands that state and local governments immediately implement serious and robust physical security measures at our schools. FPC will continue fighting to defend and advance the fundamental human right to keep and bear arms for self-defense inside and outside our homes.
Firearms Policy Coalition (www.firearmspolicy.org) is a 501(c)4 grassroots nonprofit organization. FPC’s mission is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially the fundamental, individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
Attachments:
http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9fc3ebe9-cf8b-40c5-92c8-6ddf9aa19946
Attachments:
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c7da7221-e33a-4d62-b336-579e0da10df4
