Trump Rules Out Gun Control After Shooting at Florida State

If Kamala Harris were president today, the White House would have already put out a statement demanding a ban on “assault weapons”, regardless of the fact that Leon County Sheriff Walter McNeil says the perpetrator of the shooting on the campus of Florida State got at least one of his guns from his mom, a sheriff’s deputy. 

Donald Trump, on the other hand, made it abundantly clear on Thursday afternoon that the fault lies with the person who pulled the trigger, not the inanimate object he used. 

Asked about shooting, Trump said “it’s a shame,” adding that he knew the school and the area “very well.”

But Trump suggested that he would not be advocating for any new gun legislation, saying, “the gun doesn’t do the shooting, the people do.”

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump called himself a “big advocate” of the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms.

“I have an obligation to protect the Second Amendment,” he said.

I appreciate Trump’s sentiment, and he’s absolutely right that the gun doesn’t do the shooting, the person pulling the trigger does. The gun control lobby, however, is going to have a field day with his comment about an obligation to protect the Second Amendment, which they’ll twist to claim Trump doesn’t think he has an obligation to protect us, including our sons and daughters attending class on a college campus. 

The sad truth is that today’s shooting is a tragic and painful reminder that gun control laws don’t stop those who are committed to the idea of killing as many innocent people as possible. 

Florida bans concealed carry on college campuses, and open carry everywhere in the state. The killer didn’t care. 

Florida bans the sale of firearms to adults under the age of 21. The killer didn’t care. 

Florida has a three day waiting period on firearm transfers for most adults over the age of 21. The killer didn’t care. 

The killer cared as much about Florida’s gun laws as he did the lives he took on Thursday afternoon. They served as no impediment to playing out his murderous fantasies, and most importantly, they offered no protection to his victims or those in the nearby vicinity who, by luck, chance, or God’s grace, weren’t harmed in his cowardly killing spree. 

Would an armed citizen have been around to stop the killer’s attack if Florida allowed campus carry? Maybe, maybe not. But the odds of intervening before more lives were lost and more people were hurt would at least have been much higher if students, staff, and visitors who can lawfully carry off campus had the same ability to do so once they set foot on the university’s grounds. 

The Second Amendment isn’t a guarantee that a good person with a gun will be there when you need it any more than it’s a magic solution to all our social ills. But at its core, the right to keep and bear arms is supposed to give us a fighting chance at survival; whether against a tyrannical government or the petty tyranny of a mentally disturbed or downright evil individual who’s decided the most important impact they can make in life is destroying someone else’s. 

Protecting the Second Amendment doesn’t mean we’re not interested in protecting our kids, our neighbors, our communities, or ourselves. It just means that we fundamentally disagree that the pathway to safety must include the destruction, degradation, or deprivation of a fundamental civil right.