Actor Micheal Keaton took to social media Thursday to blame what he called the “weak disgusting” NRA and Republicans for six school shootings that have occurred since the Columbine, Colorado shooting in 1999.
Those shootings include the Virginia Tech attack (April 16, 2007), the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack (December 14, 2012), the Orlando Pulse nightclub attack (June 12, 2016), the Las Vegas attack (October 1, 2017), the Sutherland Springs church attack (November 5, 2017), and the Parkland school shooting (February 14, 2018).
Ironically, each of these highlights the failure of gun control inasmuch as the attackers passed a background check for their firearms in every instance but one, and that was Sandy Hook. The Sandy Hook attacker circumvented a background check by stealing his guns and killing the rightful gun owner–his own mother–before carrying the weapons into a gun-free school zone in order to shoot unarmed teachers and unprotected children.
Keaton used Instagram to vent his rage:
He did not suggest what Congress must do in order to jettison the moniker of “weak disgusting cowards,” but it is easy to figure out some things there is no point in doing.
For example, since almost every high-profile public attacker in recent memory passed a background check for their guns, including five of the six Keaton listed, surely background checks would not be a suggestion.
Moreover, in five of the six instances that Keaton lists, the victims were in a place where they were not allowed to be armed, so Congressional support of gun-free zones would not benefit innocents either.
In four of the six instances he listed–Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Orlando Pulse, and Sutherland Springs–the attackers were armed with a handgun and a rifle, so a Congressional ban of one type of weapon would not change anything there.
In reality, the solution to such shootings appears to be allowing law-abiding citizens to shoot back. Actor Adam Baldwin had it right when he tweeted that it is time to arm school staff with guns.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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