Latest Twitter Rage: #OneLess Shows Americans Destroying Perfectly Good Guns

I’m confused. Is our national IQ dropping? The latest craze on social media is #OneLess, which supposedly shows American gun owners destroying their “weapons of war” on the off chance that the gun might be used to kill children or something. In the hysteria that follows every mass shooting, we are to believe that sane, legal gun owners who don’t commit crimes feel the need to destroy their guns so that their weapons are never used in error. A few people (who sure seem like actors to me) have videoed themselves destroying “assault rifles” (which don’t exist and are called AR or ArmaLite rifles) and this has gone viral on social media. It is my guess we are supposed to believe this is a widespread phenomenon and not just three people who have been paid by George Soros to make propaganda videos. My confusion exists on several levels.

1. Are they worried about the guns sneaking out at night and committing mass murder? If that’s the case, they should be committed to mental institutions immediately. (One critic was overheard saying “Maybe I should get rid of my AR-15. All it does is sit around doing nothing all day!”)
2. Are they planning on allowing their guns to fall into the hands of mass murderers? If so, they should rightly destroy ALL their guns, not just the scary looking ones.
3. I know a lot of gun owners. Every single one of them thinks this is a ridiculous waste of money and wouldn’t dream of destroying a valuable weapon they have in their collection for a hysterical protest that will not save one life.

https://www.facebook.com/100007513365065/videos/1993503840910042/

The newest phrase is “weapons of war have no place on our streets.” All guns are weapons of war. Most military weapons are already outlawed and are illegal for citizens to own including fully automatic rifles, tanks, rocket launchers, etc. There is no such thing as an “assault rifle,” which is a term the media just made up to outrage and upset people. All weapons are assault weapons if used in an assault. One could say my mother used to hit me with an assault spoon. This doesn’t change the fact that it was an average wooden spoon used to stir noodles.

Am I the only one who thinks our schools would be safer if these gun owners took their rifles down to the schools and volunteered to patrol the grounds with them? We call police officers with guns when someone starts shooting. Wouldn’t it be better if trained men with guns were already on the premises? Seems like a deterrent to me.

Armed security in schools is not foreign. We had an armed police officer in my public school in Illinois in the ’90s. No one ever shot the place up. Everyone was aware that Officer Friendly was in the building and knew your name. His visits to our lunch hour were daily and he made a point to chat up all the students and get to know them. If there had been an active shooter in our school, we at least had someone hunting him down immediately. I didn’t feel like I went to school in a police state, but felt protected by adults who cared. No one has been shot to death in that school. It may be little known, but many schools in Illinois have armed police or guards. It may have been a quiet response to the Laurie Dann massacre at a daycare in Winnetka, Illinois, that rocked the state. Other than a college shooting, I can’t recall there ever being a major shooting at a high school or elementary school after that one.

I have no problem with people who want to destroy their own personal property, even if I have opinions about their motives or intelligence level. If you want to get rid of your own guns, be my guest, but most of us are not going to be persuaded to follow suit. Instead, let’s talk about real solutions to facing evil that will not be extinguished by empty gestures or viral videos. Bad dudes who want to hurt people have existed from the beginning of time and will exist until the end. Facing them with common sense and equal firepower is the only logical answer. It’s time to get serious about school security and put thousands of veterans to work protecting America’s children against domestic enemies.