There are a lot of parents hurting in Minneapolis. Two are grieving the loss of their beloved children. So many others are dealing with injured kids, while still others try to reassure their young family members that the world isn’t awful and they won’t see something like a shooting every day.
I understand the pain as well as anyone who hasn’t been through losing a child in something like this. I’ve been closer to it than I ever wanted to be, so I get it.
But the problem is that grieving, hurting parents are notoriously focused on their own pain. It’s completely understandable.
However, when they start seeking to leverage that pain into legislative action that infringes on the rights of people who did nothing wrong, I’ve got a problem.
In powerful testimony, Malia Kimbrell, whose nine-year old daughter Vivian St Clair is recovering from two gunshots in the back and one in the arm, addressed lawmakers, saying that she will “settle for nothing less” than an immediate ban on semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines.
“I will get the names of any lawmakers who stand in the way of that happening and I will invite you to come to my living room and insist that you hold Vivian’s hand while we do her dressing changes each night and she cries the entire time,” Kimbrell said.
“You can look her in the eye while you cleanse her bullet wounds, and you can tell her to her face why you are opposed to keeping her safe. Why a semi-automatic rifle is more valuable than her life,” she said. She added: “To our lawmakers and people in power: who the hell is going to do something? Are you courageous or are you a coward? Do you care about our kids? Don’t tell us the answer, show us. Prove it.”
Behold the narrative that the only reason people oppose supposedly super-popular gun control is that they’re afraid. Standing for rights while being told most people disagree is an act of cowardice, apparently, and that’s a contradiction I will never understand.
Still, I get that Kimbrell is hurting. I could answer her question about whether I care about “our kids” with a glib answer of something like, “I care more about my lunch than your kids,” but that wouldn’t be true. I care about children. I care about all of them.
But I don’t care about her kids more than mine, and I use my guns to defend my family. I use them to defend myself. And yes, that includes a semi-automatic rifle.
Are they more valuable than her daughter’s life? No.
But the right to access them is more valuable than any one person’s life. It’s the way we can defend this nation from going down the dark road of tyranny.
Right now, the nations of Europe are kicking in doors and arresting people for memes and deleted content on X. They’re crushing free speech and empowering foreign “immigrants” to essentially run the nation, attacking anyone who criticizes them with the force of law.
They gave up their guns in the name of safety, and now they have neither safety nor freedom.
So yeah, I care about kids. I care about Kimbrell’s kid.
But that care goes beyond the horrific but relatively isolated incidents like what happened in Minneapolis and extends to future generations who will also want their liberty.
Kimbrell is emotional. I get that. I honestly do.
But her grieving is based on the here and now. It has no foresight for the future, for the broader implications of the policy changes she demands. That’s why grief isn’t a good guide to policy. It’s easy to get caught up in the emotions of the moment and make changes that have far-reaching and long-lasting ramifications that can’t be easily undone.
I hate it for her and all of the other parents, but while her child is important, our freedom is more important than seeking some kind of vengence for what happened.
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