Planning to fail

From CBC News:

Florida's governor is proposing a plan to prevent gun violence that includes banning the sale of firearms to anyone younger than 21 in the wake of a mass shooting that killed 17 people at a Florida high school last week.
Gov. Rick Scott announced the plan at a news conference Friday in Tallahassee. He began by reading aloud the names of the victims who were fatally shot Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Scott's plan also calls for:

• A trained law enforcement officer in every school in Florida by the time the 2018 school year begins.
• One officer for every 1,000 students on campus.
• The sale of bump stocks be banned.
• Mandatory "active shooter training" at all schools. Students, teachers and staff must complete all training and "code red" drills by the end of the first week of each semester.
• Prohibiting a "violent or mentally ill person" from purchasing a firearm through a sworn request by a family or community member, called a "violent threat restraining order."
• $50 million in additional funding for mental-health initiatives.

So, having failed to plan to safeguard the right of those 17 high school students and teachers to live,  Rick Scott's new plan is to plan to fail to safeguard their lives, and instead plan for school shootings to be the new normal. Because, let's be honest, none of these proposals are going to do anything - it's all security theatre, and none of it really addresses the main contributing factor in gun violence: guns.

The numbers do not lie, on this issue. Countries that enacted gun control laws after their first mass shooting were able to prevent them from becoming a regular occurrence. The United States, however, failed to do so, and now have more guns than residents... literally in excess of one gun for every man, woman, and child living inside their borders, whether legally or not. Bringing that situation under control is going to require more than going through the "security theatre" motions. And, as long as Republicans are in control of the government, nothing more than lip service will ever be paid to this issue.

Did I ever mention how glad I am to be Canadian, at times like this? Seriously, I have zero desire to even visit the U.S. right now. Much as I love our American neighbours, they just have way too many extremely well-armed idiots and nutjobs down there.

This isn't a problem that I can do much about; as a Canadian, I can't even donate to the campaigns of candidates that might enact gun control laws. Americans have to do that. All I can do is urge everyone in America who cares about their safety, and the lives and safety of those around them, to register to vote, and then show up to vote, for Democrats. Even voting for well-meaning Republicans means voting for more mass shooting carnage, because anything that keeps Republicans in power, or even keeps them close to parity with Dems, means that the GOP will refuse to evolve on this issue, remaining enslaved to the most reactionary elements who make up their Primary voting pool.

And that assumes that there are well-meaning elected Republicans on this issue, something for which I'm not yet seeing any evidence. Voting for change means voting "D," both this year and in 2020. Nothing else convince Republicans that they even need to change, let alone make that change happen.

Thankfully, the American electorate seems to have realized this, and is voting Democratic in every special election that comes up; one can only hope that continues through the mid-terms, and into the next Presidential cycle. And, for a wonder, the NRA is suddenly looking vulnerable for the first time in years.

So, maybe there's hope for change, even if it is a new generation that has to make it happen. I certainly hope that sanity will reassert itself south of the border. One might want to visit, sometime before the end of the century.