So says Trump, whose crippling-then-vanishing bone spurs kept him from running into any Viet Cong when his country called, but who is convinced that he would have personally stopped Nikolas Cruz, even if it meant using his bare hands against that AR-15.
This is the deranged narcissist who told us that "I alone understand the problem, and I alone can fix it." Who wins every golf game. Who wins the popular vote despite all evidence to the contrary. Who gets the biggest crowds. Who has the best words. Who gets the best ratings. Who can assault women with impunity simply because he is who he is. Who is faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive.
This is also the man who is using images of Parkland survivors in the hospital to solicit donations to his reelection campaign.
My conscious self understands that Trump's personal insanity is on some level a sideshow that keeps us distracted from the grinding, horrific destruction and damage his administration is inflicting, but it means something that we have a dangerous lunatic as our President and that his very real mental derangement is the public face of our country and the driver of his policy.
A change of heart
Republican State Representative Chris Harris represents a rural district in Kentucky. Harris is a conservative Christian. Eighty percent of his constituents voted for Trump. On Thursday Harris rose to speak to his colleagues about his plans for Lent. He had decided, he told them, to give up his "A" rating from the NRA. He was now supporting a ban on assault rifles, a ban on bump stocks, and more rigorous background checks on gun buyers.
"I have had a change of heart," Harris said. "Without action, without good works, our faith and our prayers are dead."
Chris Harris most likely just committed political suicide, but it will be through these changes of heart--one by one--that progress will be made and the NRA will be broken.
Teacher with trigger fingers, part 3
Wild Bill Hickock ("Mr. Wild Bill" to his adoring students): metal shop teacher, Deadwood, South Dakota.
Teachers with trigger fingers, part 2
Annie Oakley: home economics instructor, Willowdell, Ohio.
Teachers with trigger fingers, Part 1
Wyatt Earp: geometry teacher, Arizona Territory.
The Students Take Aim
Cultural tipping points are a slippery concept. Zealots can be too quick to declare temporary dynamics to be profound, permanent shifts. And history tells us that most change happens incrementally across societal ebbs and flows.
But tipping points do happen. Decades or generations of almost imperceptible shifts finally reach critical mass and start an avalanche. The seemingly sudden shift in attitudes toward gay marriage grew out of a long process of gays leaving the closet and being true to themselves amongst family, friends, and coworkers. Tipping points are often triggered by specific events or images. I am old enough to remember how the news footage of Bull Connor's vicious dogs attacking black protesters in Birmingham contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act the following year. The MeToo movement started with a tweet.
It's too early to tell if the student survivors from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School represent a tipping point in our endless inability to deal with gun violence in America. It's hard not to see them as traumatized innocents who are about to be sliced and diced by the gun manufacturers and their bought-and-paid-for stooges: the NRA (their storm troopers), the Republican Party (their Politburo), Fox News (their Pravda), and the alt-right blogosphere (their online hate factories). The gun manufacturers have worked hard to own this country, and they will lierally stop at nothing to keep it that way.
But it feels different. This student uprising is a truly spontaneous revolt against the perceived norm, which is important. And the students have shown themselves to be not only passionate and tenacious but extraordinarily well spoken and savvy about the media--both mainstream and social. They are the gun lobby's worst nightmare--the voices of the young. innocent victims personified. The attempts yesterday to write them off as silly children or brand them as tools of the adult left did not go well--some of the individuals who did so have lost their jobs. They have put real pressure on Trump, Congress, and the Florida state legislature to take action. I don't see any of those people actually taking meaningful action, given that the NRA owns all of them, but you can see that they are finally feeling real heat, which is a very new thing for them. The students have made it clear that the NRA is their enemy and that they will attempt to shame any politician who accepts funds from that group. Most eye-opening of all, the students have forced the NRA to abandon their traditional strategy of total silence following a mass shooting and to lay low until the outrage dies down. They have forced the NRA out into the open in the middle of the national anger. Just today it was announced that NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch will join a live CNN town hall on gun violence that will air tonight. This is a huge tactical mistake on the part of the NRA. We will see angry, passionate, and eloquent teenaged survivors calling bullshit on the NRA on national television. I don't see how this represents anything but a huge trap for the gun lobby. We will see if they get really snared and if we're living through another tipping point for a seemingly impossible problem.
Returning fire
The NRA didn't always own the U.S. government. They worked hard over many years to buy it, and we, the majority of Americans who support common-sense gun control, haven't done enough to stop them.
We are not powerless. It's pretty simple: We need to get off our collective asses and make politicians fear us more than they fear the NRA.
Don't vote Republican. The NRA owns the GOP lock, stock, and smoking barrel. In 2016 the NRA spent $5.9 million on Republican candidates while only donating $106,000 to Democrats. The GOP is the political arm of the NRA, so if we want to limit its influence we have to defeat Republicans. (And don't forget the countless other benefits we would receive if Republicans did not control Congress!)
If your local, state or federal representatives are considering or voting on anti-gun-control legislation, get all over them.
There are two nationwide groups dedicated to defeating the NRA and passing gun-control legislation. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg helped to establish Everytown for Gun Safety (everytown.org), which now has over four million members. Moms Demand Action (momsdemandaction.org) is another important group that is doing excellent work in combatting the NRA. Join these groups, contribute to them, and participate in their political action programs.
The NRA can be defeated. But only by us.