By Tom Reynolds S.C.O.P.E. Treasurer and Board Member

The Marjorie Stoneman Douglas commission was tasked with investigating and reporting the facts of that tragic high school shooting in Florida.

They recommended that staff and teachers, who are screened and trained, be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus. The reason given was that the shooter killed or wounded 34 people in less than 4 minutes. Obviously, no law enforcement officer in the world could have responded from off campus and engaged the shooter in that short amount of time. (As one famous saying goes, “When police are only minutes away, you need something that goes 1,500 feet per second.”)

Since that time, a Florida judge, appointed by Barack Obama, ruled in a related case that the sheriff’s deputies were not constitutionally obligated to protect the students. This ruling did not break new ground since there were similar previous rulings.

Should police departments that print “Protect and Serve” on their police cars have to scrape “Protect” off as false advertising?

From a positive standpoint, the overwhelming number of police officers are willing to put their lives on the line to “Protect” even if not constitutionally obligated to do so. From a negative standpoint, how do you know which type of officer will show up when your life is threatened?

New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo has come out firmly against arming teachers. He said, “I really don't want to see a teacher in the front of the room drop his or her eraser or chalk and pull out a gun and start firing at a person who walks into the back of the classroom with a gun…it's almost comedic, if it wasn't so tragic.”

Is Cuomo afraid students might potentially be shot in a possible crossfire? What about those students who will definitely be shot if there is no armed person there to stop the shooter? The latter instance better fits the definition of tragic.

Oakland University, in southeast Michigan, does not allow guns on campus. As an alternative, they have armed faculty, staff and students with hockey pucks. In a spur -of-the-moment comment, the university’s police chief first suggested it, since he was once hit by a hockey puck and it did,“…a fair amount of damage.” He later admitted that his suggestion, “…was not a well thought out strategy.”The university’s branch of the American Association of University Professors Union disagreed with him and it purchased and armed the faculty, staff and students with hockey pucks.

To paraphrase Sean Connery in the movie The Untouchables, “Only an Oakland University faculty member would bring a hockey puck to a gun fight”.

Kate Steinle was shot and killed by a “criminal migrant” felon who had been deported five times. He should have been deported six times, since the San Francisco police department had him in custody after his release from federal prison, but San Francisco is a sanctuary city that does not cooperate with ICE and they released him.

As Kate Steinle lay on the ground in her father’s arms she kept saying, “Dad, help me, help me”. I cannot imagine a worse moment for father.

I don’t have to repeat the idiotic claims by the liberal left that would have us believe that open borders and sanctuary cities are the “moral” way of doing things.

Thankfully, the Second Amendment protects – not grants but protects -the right of self-defense. Unlike the liberal left, almost all gun owners are non-violent and law abiding. However, the liberal left keeps pushing more and more extreme measures that put our lives and property in danger while simultaneously trying to take away the guns that protect us. It’s not the Constitution - since the left doesn’t believe in it – but only the fact that we already have guns that has stopped them short of full confiscation. Even people like Cuomo have to be concerned about pushing people with guns too far.

Unfortunately, there are people on the extreme left who would rejoice to see America divided and destroyed. And yes, I’m speaking about you, Barack Obama.