Why won’t pro-lifers act against our deadly gun culture?
WASHINGTON — Let us hear no more lectures from Clarence Thomas on the sanctity of human life.
WASHINGTON — Let us hear no more lectures from Clarence Thomas on the sanctity of human life.
The Supreme Court justice, with timing that could be charitably described as clumsy, issued his latest paean to gun rights Tuesday, as the child victims of last week’s school shooting were still being buried.
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Reacting to his colleagues’ refusal to hear a case challenging California’s waiting period for gun purchases, he complained that justices would hear similar challenges to abortion, speech or privacy. “The Court would take these cases because abortion, speech and the Fourth Amendment are three of its favored rights,” Thomas wrote. “The right to keep and bear arms is apparently this Court’s constitutional orphan.”
Not for the first time, Thomas has it backward. Abortions are restricted far more than guns (and abortions are declining, while gun deaths are rising). Even speech is limited if it endangers life. Why shouldn’t there be reasonable restrictions on guns, too?
But Thomas has a bigger problem: claiming to be “pro-life” while his advocacy of unlimited gun rights expands a culture of death. The gun-control movement has been reluctant to use such words, lest it be seen as aping the anti-abortion movement. But the theme is apt, and it points to the hypocrisy of those who profess to be pro-life but also are pro-gun without exception, those who denounce the termination of a pregnancy but not the termination of innocent life outside the womb.
Even though 92 percent of abortions take place in the first trimester, the pro-life movement takes particular aim at late-term abortion. So let’s think of the Parkland victims in those terms:
Nicholas Dworet, who aspired to swim in the 2020 Olympics, was killed in the 72nd trimester of his life, a month shy of his 18th birthday.
Carmen Schentrup, a 2018 National Merit Scholarship finalist, was killed at the end of her 68th trimester of her life and buried the day before her 17th birthday.
Peter Wang, who had not yet reached his 64th trimester, was buried in his Junior ROTC uniform and was accepted posthumously at West Point.
They had a right to life. So did the 12 other kids and two faculty members who died.
Pro-life groups are largely silent about this, while others on the right have slandered the Parkland survivors, who in their grief have cried out for gun control, by claiming they are itinerant actors. Some explicitly tie the shooting to abortion. On the conservative website Newsmax, Dan Perkins wrote: “How is it that we have a society that on the one hand can become enraged at a school shooting, but have no compassion for the 27 babies killed by abortion each day (in Florida)?”
The theme has been prominent this week in conservative social media, prompting a writer for the religion website Patheos, G. Shane Morris, to argue, thoughtfully: “It is not legitimate, in the aftermath of the carnage at Stoneman Douglas High School, to yell, ‘Yeah, but what about abortion?!’” Morris argued: “If we truly are pro-life, we should be willing to … talk about what needs to be done to stop a uniquely horrifying form of bloodshed that’s wracked this nation again and again in recent months and years.”
For many pro-lifers, opposition to abortion is deeply held morality. But it is no stretch to say that those who accept the routine mass murder of innocents are not truly pro-life.
Many on the right bristle at the idea that gun control will limit gun deaths, so let’s set that aside. What else would stop horrors of the sort that occurred at Parkland? More school security? Better mental health intervention? As Politico reported, President Donald Trump’s budget, released two days before the shooting, proposed a $25 million cut in funds for school safety activities and elimination of a $400 million grant program for bullying prevention, mental health assistance and the like. The budget also proposed deep cuts to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health.
Trump has made some noises about gun control in recent days, though it remains to be seen whether that is the usual pro-gun rope-a-dope after such tragedies. He also responded to Parkland with the language of the pro-life movement, urging a culture “that embraces the dignity of life.”
“Dignity of Life.” “Culture of life.” “Sanctity of life.” “Protecting life.” Those fighting against gun violence should own such language, seizing it from those who call themselves pro-life but refuse to act against America’s culture of death by firearms.
Dana Milbank is a columnist for The Washington Post. Email him at danamilbank@washpost.com.
Progressive-fascism is a cult of death, for both unborn & live children.
Humans are just fodder to be sacrificed, for the greater good.
When seconds count, police are minutes away.
Meaningful self-defense is a human right.
The school had a guard who chose not to enter. So much for your good guy with a gun theory.
YAHWEH’S MINISTRY, HILO, HAWAII
So, are you saying that all cops would behave the same way?
Aren’t you stereotyping, which is something Liberals are supposed to be against?
Nope… not what I said.
Please expand on your statement: “So much for your good guy with a gun theory”.
What exactly do you mean?
I mean that every policeman who has ever been killed was armed.
YAHWEH’S MINISTRY, LINCOLN PARK, HILO
So were a countless number of U.S. military since the Revolutionary War also killed while armed. Being armed doesn’t automatically mean that person isn’t going to be shot and killed by another armed person.
This wasn’t such a good guy, was he.He never even faced the shooter.
Too bad the coach inside facing the killer didn’t have a gun, as instead of sacrificing himself he could have saved the kids. Some of the kids even said so, on TV.
When seconds count, police are minutes away.
Meaningful self-defense is a human right.
It simply wouldn’t have been an issue if the kid wasn’t sold a gun.
Sadly, true
If the politically corrrect Broward County Democrat sheriffs would have arrested an Hispanic surnamed high school kid , making their stats look bad against policy, he would have failed his background check.
Was there a valid reason to arrest him?
Perhaps you should read about him a whole lot more, before venturing analysis on this.
Unless it doesn’t matter to you, it’s all about the guns & nothing else.
Two sherriffs are currently suspended & under investigation for NOT arresting him. FBI ignored a lengthy call to them , exactly about him being a school shooting risk. And a whole lot more.
There is a difference between being a shooting risk and breaking the law. it is called mental health. Obama had it set up so we could take mental health into consideration, but Trump deregulated that.
My “hack” alert goes off whenever I read the phrase “reasonable restrictions on guns.” I have never met a human being who did not claim to be in favor of “reasonable restrictions on guns.” The NRA says that it believes in reasonable restrictions on guns.
YAHWEH’S MINISTRY, HILO, HAWAII
Trying to downplay the contrast between abortions vs. deaths from firearms is pathetic
The number of abortions in 2014 was some 926,000
The total number of deaths from firearms which includes homicides, suicides, accidential and undetermined intent is some 33,000.
Apparently, the Liberals answer to potential deaths from firearms is to simply kill the child before the baby is born.
Because republicans care about one thing.
Subjugation of women.
Their desires are to regulate birth control and sex as well as a woman’s right of free choice.
Once that 9 month old fetus becomes a living breathing human being no republican wants any thing to do with him/her except to get them to vote them back into office.