The Eastern New Mexico News - Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

How much do you respect self-destructive people?

Do you honor those who engage in self-harm such as “cutting?” Do you celebrate those who burn up their mind and body by abusing drugs and alcohol? Do you respect those who commit suicide as soon as life doesn’t go their way?

Then why praise teenagers (or anyone else) who protest for more anti-gun laws? Just because they are “doing something” with conviction? If that’s all it takes, young ISIS recruits deserve your respect, too.

I value education, so I encourage kids to walk out of school for any reason. However, if these young activists believe their walkout is a protest for “safety,” they are tragically mistaken. When the teachers and administration sponsor the “walkout,” it’s not a walkout, it’s a field trip.

What makes you believe these students have the wisdom to run your life, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary?

Anti-gun laws make criminals safer. “Gun free zones” are gun free only until some evil loser decides to go on a killing spree and chooses a target where he knows he’ll be free to kill. When that happens there are suddenly too few guns; the only guns present being in the wrong hands. This is mandated by law. It makes the killer’s cruel task easier and deadlier, and doesn’t boost the safety of the kids or teachers.

There is a term for people like the anti-gun students: useful idiots. They are very useful to political bullies who prefer unarmed subjects to armed peers. An armed person isn’t as easy to control. They may be able to resist if pushed.

This is why governments don’t like guns they don’t control, and always try to turn the right into a privilege — even while giving lip service to gun rights.

If they pretend a right is subject to their laws, limits, and licenses, they can change the way you think about your natural rights. They can change the way you think about the people who want to run your life. These are the people orchestrating the student protests, putting words in the kids’ mouths; pulling all the strings.

The young anti-liberty activists believe they are on the right side. Time will tell whether they are on the winning side, but their side isn’t the right side. Truth and ethics are against them.

Eventually, they’ll either realize their mistake, double-down due to cognitive dissonance, or they’ll go into politics where truth and ethics are rarely beneficial, anyway.

Farwell’s Kent McManigal champions liberty. Contact him at: dullhawk@hotmail.com