The 1962 Supreme
Court case of Engel v. Vitale reaffimed the fact that prayer in public schools
was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the
United States Constitution. A year later, the Supreme Court, in the case of Abington School District
Canada also does not
allow prayers in public schools because it is disallowed under the concept of
Freedom of Conscience on Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. France does not allow
school prayer due to its status as a laicist (religiously neutral) country, This
is the country, remember, that declared Joan of Arc a national symbol of France
in 1803. Even though it is a predominately Muslim country, Turkey
Since school
shootings in America
Soon after the most recent mass murder in yet Parkland,
Florida, a Christian radio host named Bryan Fischer publicly
declared that "God
allows school shootings like the one that claimed 17 lives at Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, because there is not enough prayer in
public schools." Mr Fischer believes: "I suggest we have mass school
shootings because we don't have enough God on our campuses."
So ….
Here is a question
for you. When did school shootings first start in America
1990?
1980?
1970?
1960?
The answer is ….
1764, which
happens to be 198 years before the Supreme Court ruling that outlawed prayers
in schools.
The number of
instances per decade has been fairly low, and fairly consistent, until
recently. You will notice on the chart shown in the link listed below that the
average number of incidents per decade started to increase in the 1970’s, and
has increased significantly since 2010.
The reason for the
increase?
Harlon Carter.
Until the middle 1970s, the NRA mainly focused on sportsmen,
hunters and target shooters, and downplayed gun
control issues. However, passage of the GCA galvanized
a growing number of NRA gun rights activists,
including Harlon
Carter. In 1975, it began
to focus more on politics and established its lobbying arm, the Institute for
Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), with Carter as director. The next year, its
political action committee (PAC), the Political Victory Fund, was created in
time for the 1976 elections. The
1977 annual convention was a
defining moment for the organization and came to be known as "The
Cincinnati Revolution".Leadership planned to relocate NRA
headquarters to Colorado and to build a $30 million recreational facility in
New Mexico, but activists within the organization whose central concern was
Second Amendment rights defeated the incumbents and elected Carter as executive
director and Neal
Knox as
head of the NRA-ILA.
Ted Nugent has been a board member of the NRA
since at least 2012. Less than a week after the Parkland shooting, he promoted the right-wing
conspiracy theory that the Parkland
school shooting survivors who are currently calling for gun regulation are
“coached” actors.
Today, the NRA is considered the most powerful
lobbying organization in the country. In 2016, the NRA had revenue of $434
million, and expenses of $476 million. As of 2012, 88% of the Republicans in
Congress, and 11% of the Democrats, had received money from the NRA at some
point in their career. In 2012, the NRA spent roughly $10 million to support
Mitt Romney. In 2016, it spend $30 million to help elect Donald Trump.
The members of Congress who have received the
most money can be found at the link below:
John McCain is the overall winner, with career
contributions of $7,740,521.
All of the folks on the list have sent their “thoughts
and prayers” after the various mass shootings have occurred. For some reason,
all that prayin’ just has not done much good.
For more than 100 years, the NRA was a great
organization.
The National Rifle Association was started in
1871 by Colonel William Church and General George Wingate in order to correct
the poor shooting that they witnessed during the Civil War. Their goal was to "promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific
basis".
The NRA's interest in promoting the shooting
sports among America's youth began in 1903 when NRA Secretary Albert S. Jones
urged the establishment of rifle clubs at all major colleges, universities and
military academies. By 1906, NRA's youth program was in full swing with more
than 200 boys competing in matches at Sea Girt that summer.
Today, youth
programs are
still a cornerstone of the NRA, with more than one million youth participating
in NRA shooting sports events and affiliated programs with groups such as 4-H,
the Boy Scouts of America, the American Legion, Royal Rangers, National High
School Rodeo Association and others.
The NRA's call to help arm Britain in 1940
resulted in the collection of more than 7,000 firearms for Britain's defense
against potential invasion by Germany (Britain had virtually disarmed itself
with a series of gun-control laws enacted between World War I and World War II).
After the war, the NRA concentrated its efforts
on another much-needed arena for education and training: the hunting
community. In
1949, the NRA, in conjunction with the state of New York, established the first
hunter education program.
In 1956, NRA became the only national trainer
of law enforcement officers with the introduction of its NRA Police
Firearms Instructor certification program, which became fully operational in 1960.
The Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program was started in
1988 in order to protect kindergarten through 4th grade students.
In 1990, the NRA Foundation was established in
order to ensure that gun safety and educational programs will be fully funded
in the future.
The NRA’s first step into political activism
was in1934, when the organization formed the Legislative Affairs Division.
Although it did no direct lobbying, it DID mail facts and analyses to members
of Congress.
In 1975, the organization became more
aggressive in their approach, and formed the Institute for Legislative Action.
Since its founding, the NRA has had 26 presidents,
but the best known leaders were Charlton Heston and U.S. Grant. The current
president is Pete Brownwell, but the most prominent spokesman for the
organization has been Wayne LaPierre, who is the executive vice president, a
position that he has held since 1991. His annual salary is $972,000.
To his credit, he actually DOES have a few
good ideas:
Supports
·
Having armed security personnel at schools.
·
Increasing funds for a stricter and more
efficient mental health system, and reform of civil commitment
laws to facilitate institutionalization of the mentally ill when necessary.
·
Creating a computerized universal mental health registry of
those adjudicated to be incompetent, to help limit gun sales to the mentally
ill.
·
Increasing enforcement of federal laws
against and incarceration of violent gang members or felons with guns.
·
Project Exile and similar programs that
mandate severe sentences for all gun crimes, especially illegal
possession. LaPierre stated, "By prosecuting them, they prevent the drug
dealer, the gang member, and the felon from committing the next crime... Leave
the good people alone and lock up the bad people and dramatically cut
crime."[9]
·
Restriction on "bump fire" type
rifle stocks, in the aftermath of the Vegas shooting in 2017.
·
Bans on fully automatic firearms
Not all of his ideas, however, are good ones:
Opposes
·
Universal background checks, as he believes this will lead to a
universal gun registry.
·
Some gun control laws which he views as a form of government
tyranny: "What people all over the country fear today is being abandoned
by their government. If a tornado hits, if a hurricane hits, if a riot occurs,
that they're going to be out there alone, and the only way they will protect
themselves, in the cold, in the dark, when they are vulnerable, is with a
firearm." There are some laws, however, he supports, such as the ban on
gun sales to, or possession by, convicted felons or those adjudicated as
incompetent or mentally ill.
Ironically, the
best way to bring an end to school shootings is to use EXACTLY the same methods
that the NRA used to become THE most successful lobbying group in the country.
As former Clinton spokesman George
Stephanopoulos said, "Let me make one small vote for the NRA. They're good
citizens. They call their congressmen. They write. They vote. They contribute.
And they get what they want over time.
In 2018, the GOP is on very shaky grounds with
the voting public. Even though legislatures in Arizona, Florida, and other
states STILL refuse to take meaningful action after the shooting in Parkland,
the tsunami wave is going to hit in November, and it’s not going to be pretty
for the Republican Party.
During the Vietnam War, opposition to the war
on college campuses was the primary catalyst for our withdrawal from Vietnam.
Today, the charge is being led by high school students, who are fed up with the
fact that there have been fatal school shootings since Columbine.
Including non
fatal shootings, there had been 270 shootings – and that statistic is from
February of 2016.
It may still take
a little longer, but America is eventually going to be saved -
by its teenagers.
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