By now everyone is familiar with the Uvalde, Texas mass murder. As one of the strongest supporters of the second amendment in the Nebraska Legislature, I felt expressing my opinion on this matter was something many people expected me to do. Out of respect for the families of the victims, I wanted to wait for the funerals to at least be finished before making any public comments. 

A number of politicians here in Nebraska and in Washington, D.C. felt the need to comment on the story within hours of the tragedy. Politicizing this event to promote utterly failed policies is ghoulish and inappropriate to say the least. Yet again, this tragedy provides another horrifying example of the fact “gun free zones” do not work. Evil maniacs determined to murder people cannot be stopped with a sign.

We’ve had more guns in the United States than we’ve had population since the early days of our nation. We’ve only had mass shootings in the United States for about the last twenty years. This is not a “gun problem.” This is very obviously a mental health and physical security problem, to say nothing about our culture. The idea that somehow law-abiding citizens are causing mass shootings because they are unwilling to give up their God-given right to keep and bear arms is not only ridiculous, it is anti-American. 

The 2nd Amendment was not made part of the constitution so a person could go to the gun range and target shoot or go hunting. Our young nation had just finished a war with the world’s super power at the time. The Founding Fathers implemented the Second Amendment so that the new United States government would always be beholden to its citizens. They believed it was crucial that future generations had the same power to overthrow a potentially tyrannical government. 

When President Kennedy was assassinated, how we secure and protect our elected officials saw big changes. When 9/11 happened, we created a whole new federal government agency to secure and protect airline passengers. More young people die from fentanyl overdoses and being murdered by illegal aliens, than are being shot by AR-15’s, yet I don’t see our federal government doing anything to secure our southern border. Instead they want to take guns away from law-abiding citizens with “assault weapon” bans. I’m forced to ask, is the federal government more interested in disarming their political opposition, or saving American lives? 

If you look at all of the deadly school shootings in the United States, all of them share a common fact: On the day of the shooting, no good guy with a gun was inside the school. Other critical links in the chain of events include the fact the shooter was known to local law enforcement as a disturbed person, yet no one acted on this knowledge. The physical security of the school was also compromised by multiple, unattended points of entry into the building.

It’s time to stop playing politics with the lives of our children. We need a sober analysis of the critical events that lead to these tragedies and then apply changes to school security policies that actually work. I look forward to introducing or co-sponsoring legislation that actually accomplishes this important goal for Nebraska.

Taking constitutionally-protected rights away from law-abiding citizens does absolutely nothing to stop school shootings.