'Big-Time Spooky'
By Mary Starrett
NewsWithViews.com
4-25-3

That's what Donte Johnson, a junior at McDonogh High School in New Orleans said after a classmate was killed in the school's gym last week. "Nobody wants to be in there after what happened" he added.
 
While Donte was more than likely referring to the pool of blood and the dead body, I see some other spooky elements to this latest shooting.
 
For instance, no one's calling it what it was- a gang-related payback killing. No media accounts decry the black on black crime that's gotten so completely out of control.
 
"It's despicable that the (anti-gun crowd) is trying to give their ...agenda a boost by portraying criminal gang members as innocent school children" says Maria Heil, national spokesperson for the Second Amendment Sisters.
 
Instead of focusing on the fact that the dead kid, 15 year old Jonathan Williams was also carrying a gun when he was shot (so much for the school's metal detectors) news reports zero in on the incident as yet another "school" shooting. Like these misguided thugs wouldn't have offed each other at a drive-in? No, the reason they did it in a school is because schools are guaranteed to be undefended and unprotected because of all the laws that were passed to "protect" us from school shootings. This shooting has also become the poster-crime for renewing the Assault Weapons Ban which is, "coincidentally," set to expire soon. Hence, the usual suspects in the anti-gun crowd are using this crime as a rallying cry for more and improved gun control laws.
 
Heil adds "(They're) making it sound as though assault weapons have been used in all the "school" shootings."
 
I just can't quite wrap my mind around yet another shooting that appears to come at a time when the anti-gunners need to make a particular point. Just as the DC sniper shootings served as the perfect ammunition for a national ballistics database, this shooting happened just as discussion began on re-upping the Assault Weapons Ban. These are no coincidences. Trot Out The Mommies.
 
In addition to Schumer and Feinstein and the "conservative, gun-friendly" president Bush, who are calling for a renewing of the ban, the Mostly Myopic Mommies are jumping on this shooting, making it a cause celebre for strict, anti- Constitutional gun laws that don't do anything but hurt the good guys.
 
"Only in America", says the president of the N.J. State Council of the Million Mom March, Carole Stiller. "The US is the only developed country where such overwhelming firepower is available to the general public". Well, Carole, in places where firepower isn't available, people kill each other with other tools, like knives and machetes.
 
Another recent "school" shooting at Louisiana Technical College in Nachtitoches had 'em calling for stricter gun laws, as well. Another kid who'd been gunned down in gang-like retaliation, another black on black crime no one wanted to comment on. Again, it was a "school" shooting, where the shooter used a "semiautomatic handgun." Specifics are lost on the media except when it comes to describing what kind of gun was used, it seems.
 
As if on cue, along comes a Louisiana politican who swears he doesn't want to use the shootings to "pander to the public" about his new and improved gun control bill, but that's exactly what he's done.
 
Louisiana state law says you can't take guns to school. So apparently since THAT law didn't do the trick it's time to "strengthen" it. Democrat Rick Gallot has introduced a NEW bill to add teeth to the old one, and it says THE VERY SAME THING: it's illegal to take guns to school. Will the insanity ever end?
 
Just to sum up: The first law didn't work, so now let's pass another law that won't work. And should you tire of this Kafkaesque scene playing out on our national stage, you can always watch the "documentary" Bowling For Columbine, by that grand American filmmaker- social commentator Michael Moore.
 
Moore won an Oscar for Best Documentary. Only thing is, this work can hardly be classified as such. Better termed a work of fiction, the film should never have been classified a doc. It contains staged scenes( a no-no), made-up events (ditto) and bogus "facts". All the better to add fuel to the anti-gun sentiment in this country. And most Americans don't have a clue.
 
I'm with Donte. It's big-time spooky.
 
© 2003 Mary Starrett - All Rights Reserved
 
Mary Starrett was on television for 21 years as a news anchor, morning talk show host and medical reporter. For the last 5 years she hosted a radio program. Mary is a frequent guest on radio talk shows.
 
http://www.newswithviews.com/Mary/starrett9.htm