Rhetorical Shots Fired, Facts Injured in Gun Debate
State lawmakers are getting testy over gun-control legislation, at least on Facebook. Matt Bittle of the Delaware State News has the story of the spat between State Sen. Dave Lawson and House Speak Pete Schwartzkopf over a semi-true video Lawson posted urging people to oppose two gun bills. Lawson’s video made untrue claims about what was in the bills, which drew fire from Schwartzkopf and return fire from Lawson. Facts on both sides were injured in the exchange.
Meanwhile, over in the News Journal, Sen. Colin Bonini tried to score some points on the school safety front by inviting the media to Caesar Rodney High to see the latest in school-hardening technology: The Guardian Booth, a 4-by-6-foot aluminum-and-glass box that’s very useful as a place for someone like a school safety officer to stand in, provided physically intervening in a situation isn’t a priority. CR Principal Sherry Kijowski, astutely sizing up its value, said it will be positioned outside the football stadium for use as a ticket booth.
On the national gun front, the NRA conceded that it accepts foreign donations but maintains none of it was among the $50.2 million it spent on 2016 elections. It also says it can’t prove that, because it intermingles funds indiscriminately. How convenient. It did not address the question of why an organization committed to gun rights in the U.S. is taking foreign donations in the first place.
Personally I think the windfall of monies into the state coffers should be spent building parapets on schools roofs that can be manned by snipers in machine gun nests. That would be so lit.
Congrats to Scott Goss for capturing the Principal’s dead pan delivery on the VERY expensive ticket booth story.
I think an industrious entrepreneur could start a business setting up earthworks and chevaux de frise outside every high school in the state. Because this is a economic opportunity, folks. What’s more American than earning a little extra dough fortifying a place of learning as Pemberton fortified Vicksburg.
This is totally normal and as the founders intended.
“This is totally normal and as the founders intended.”
That gets to the heart of it. When I heard Trump’s “solutions” to school shootings I noticed how all of his nonsense was rooted in the “ho-hum” assumption that there is really nothing we can do about all of these mass murders.
Had Lawson either read DL or had someone read it to him, he would have been aware of the carve-outs in the Schwartzkopf bill. The dolt was looking at the wrong bill.
Here’s what’s possibly newsworthy in that piece, though:
“He (Lawson) also indicated Senate Democrats might try to suspend the rules to skip committee hearings for both measures.”
Well, McBride could have put the bills in a more hospitable committee and skipped that possibility altogether. Me? I want to see that committee vote on them, and if Lavelle doesn’t vote for their release, McBride can then reassign the bills to another committee.
Greg: Adapt or die.