ABOUT THE CHILDREN by Massad Ayoob

[Olcoot]

Cannily, the President surrounded himself with kids from early elementary school when he gave his "gun control" speech today. Since he speaks for the symbolism-side of this polarized debate, that was hardly unexpected.

It was a shame the young ones didn't get the chance to discuss it themselves. Suppose you asked a second-grader, "Kids, if a bad boy in your class took crayons and wrote all over the walls of your classroom, would it be right to take the crayons away from the boys and girls who behaved?"

I suspect the children would unanimously answer, "No! That's not fair! Take them away from the boy who did the bad thing, not the rest of us!"

And of course, they might also ask, "Where was the teacher? Why didn't the teacher stop the boy who did the bad thing with the crayons?"

THERE is the logical question: why wasn't someone there in Sandy Hook Elementary School who could stop Adam Lanza? Because we're not talking crayons here, we're talking innocent lives. The school custodian can scrub crayon graffiti from the school walls. We can never wash away the innocent blood that was spilled at Newtown, never paint over the grief of the bereaved.

A few weeks ago, when NRA's Wayne LaPierre explained that his organization wanted armed security in schools, the mainstream media and the anti-gunners alike excoriated him. One New York tabloid devoted its front page to a headline that said something like, "Gun Nut: NRA Loon In Bizarre Rant"

Yet this morning, our President said one of his own priorities was to put cops in schools in hopes of preventing a repeat of the Newtown Atrocity. Will the same New York tabloid run a headline tomorrow that reads, "White House Loon In Bizarre Rant"?

Somehow, I doubt it.

Because some people don't have the common sense of a seven-year-old.

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