~a column by Colleen O’Brien
There are many wry expressions about hypocrisy that could define public officials who addressed the shooting of 17 people in a Florida school a week ago. “If you’re going to talk the talk, you’d better walk the walk.” “Talk doesn’t cook rice.” “He liked to go from A to Be without inventing letters between.” My favorite saying about hypocrites? “Talk’s cheap, takes money to buy whiskey.”
These pithy sayings came to mind as I listened to elected officials from Florida and other places anguish over the 17 Parkland, Florida high school killings, the second St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in America. The first of that name was in Chicago in 1929, and seven died, five of them gangsters.
Most of these officials – governors, state and federal senators, assemblymen and congressmen, President – said they were “praying,” they were “thinking of,” they were “sorry for…the dead, the families, the friends.” A couple of them said the FBI was wrong in not pursuing the many leads they had to the shooter before he shot; one said the FBI was spending all its time on the Russia investigation instead of following killers’ leads; they all mentioned tighter security at schools; at least one said he wanted concealed-weapons carriers assigned to schools in order to shoot it out when and if a shooter breached school security. (“That would allow for the fastest, quickest, and most effective response,” said Florida state Rep. Julio Gonzales); several said it was too early to talk about what to do; one or two mentioned spending some money for the mentally ill; none on the right mentioned gun control laws unless to say they would not work. The President talked for seven minutes the day after the shooting but didn’t use the word gun.
Information regarding money donated by the National Rifle Association to public officials is readily available.* The NRA is the most vociferous non-profit lobby in the country advocating ownership of guns of any kind, and its records show that they support only those who don’t want gun control. The NRA’s money, much of which is used for lobbying and much of which is used for ads for pro-gun candidates and ads against gun-control candidates, comes from membership, which stands at more than 5 million.
In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott gets an A+ from the NRA for his attitude against and vetoing of laws restricting even assault weapons. U.S. Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has received $122,000 over his career and is rated a B+ from the NRA.
In Iowa, Senator Joni Ernest, an A+ in the NRA ratings, received around about $300,000 from the NRA, and the NRA spent nearly $3 million on ads against her opponent. President Trump, during his campaign for the presidency, received advertising from the NRA to the tune of more than $30 million, even though at a political rally in Iowa in 2016, he said, “I’m self-funding my own campaign.”
The gun homicide rate in the U.S. is six times higher than in Canada, seven times higher than in Sweden, and nearly 16 times higher than in Germany. Economist Richard Florida has examined the link between gun deaths and other indicators and found that U.S. states with stricter gun control laws have fewer gun-related deaths.
It is not only the lying about the inability of gun laws to stop the killing by gun, it is the hypocrisy of the caring and praying when kids are shot that wears me down. Public officials who weep and pray and in somber voice console the families of the dead while saying not one word about weapon bans. They always vote no (or the NRA will start taking out ads against them).Their lack of courage astonishes.
We have more guns in this country than any other country in the world. And if the price we’re willing to pay to misinterpret the Second Amendment to the Constitution is to continue electing folks who won’t pass gun control laws, folks who want their political ads paid for by the NRA before they want to save kids in schools? Well, we’re already lost, aren’t we? We were lost when we did nothing nearly 20 years ago after 13 kids were murdered in the Columbine school shooting of 1999.
All those politicians’ prayers might do some good in the halls of heaven, but here on earth, their talk is cheap.
*[See NRA.org and the Center for Responsive Politics}
