Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Sometimes, a comment on an unrelated issue can be a major warning about a danger to our Second Amendment rights. The recent comments by Terry McAuliffe about parental involvement in schools is one such comment.
Schools have had the attention of Second Amendment supporters in the context of preventing school shootings for a long time. That attention has been rightly focused on efforts to prevent -and mitigate those attacks. Why? Because in the wake of Columbine, Sandy Hook, and other horrific school shootings, Bloomberg’s group gets support from parents so worried about their kids, they end up buying the snake oil from Everytown and Moms Demand Action.
Stopping that is important, to put it mildly. It not only requires legislation like the School Violence Prevention and Mitigation Act of 2019, but Second Amendment supporters, particularly after Sandy Hook, called for armed security at schools. And it is the right call, Cowards of Broward aside.
But McAuliffe’s comments highlight another danger to the Second Amendment from our schools.
This is coming from teachers and administrators who are pushing the agenda of anti-Second Amendment extremists. We covered the double standard before, especially with the trade-offs that Second Amendment supporters who are high school students and college students have to keep in mind, but McAuliffe’s comments make it clear there is another front.
In this case, Second Amendment supporters need to act, but this action starts with taking time to look over the assignments and textbooks their children get from school. In addition, they need to start finding out what else is going on in their students’ classes. Because the first line of battle is not in the halls of power, whether it’s corporate, legal, or political. It’s in our schools.
The good news is that Second Amendment supporters working at the grassroots level have a very good chance to make a difference when it comes to what is taught in schools. Running for school board is not as difficult as running for Congress, and the effect it will have on securing our rights could be far greater than you might think.
There will be one key point to keep in mind – Second Amendment supporters will have to contend with the teachers unions, and they have weighed in against our right already. The American Federation of Teachers threatened Wells Fargo when it refused to go along with corporate gun control, and you can bet the NEA will also fight as well.
The good news is that we have faced foes with “deep pockets” before, and beating the teachers’ unions will be important as well. Second Amendment supporters need to turn back these assaults on our rights by working to defeat anti-Second Amendment extremists at the federal, state, and local level via the ballot box as soon as possible. They also need to support pro-Second Amendment organizations.