Never Say Never Again

 Valentine's Day 2018. I was on jury duty. When I came out of the courtroom for a break, I checked the news. There had been a shooting at a high school in Florida. Seventeen people were dead. Many more were injured. Police were able to identify the murderer from eyewitness accounts and security camera footage. Yet somehow, he was able to escape the campus. He was taken into custody after he had fled the scene mixing in with the students fleeing the building, having dropped his AR-15 rifle. He had enough time to make a stop at a nearby McDonalds before he was arrested. 

What followed was an historic youth-based move for more common sense gun control, led by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. They formed a political action committee called Never Again MSD with the expressed intent of working against those political candidates who receive massive contributions from the National Rifle Association. 

It is at this point that I would be happy to share the news that their efforts have been rewarded at last with legislation that would make good on their promise of "never again." This was around the time that it became apparent that there was a mass shooting just about every day of the week. To that end, Florida's Senator, Marco Rubio, insisted at the time that he would do everything he could to keep this kind of senseless violence from occurring anymore. Thus far his efforts include blocking bills from other lawmakers and putting forth a resolution honoring the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. 

When confronted by a survivor of that shooting, Senator Rubio squirmed out of having to give up his NRA donations. He did pledge to support any legislation that would keep guns out of the hands of a deranged killer.

That was four years ago. Since then Senator Marco has continued to be in the top ten beneficiaries of NRA money for being such a staunch defender of the Second Amendment. Which has essentially translated into his inability to follow through on that "deranged killer" promise he made back in 2018. 

Marco is currently running for re-election. In the course of a debate against his Democratic challenger, he backed way off his now forgotten pledge to support a ban on eighteen year olds owning assault style rifles. This caused his opponent, Val Demings to ask, “How long will you watch people being gunned down in first grade, fourth grade, high school, college, church, synagogue, a grocery store, a movie theater, a mall and a nightclub — and do nothing?” 

It was a rhetorical question, but since the much-delayed trial of the MDS killer has finally concluded, and the survivors of that most horrible Valentine's Day have graduated and moved on, maybe it's time for Mister Marco to take his empty promises and give someone else a chance to deliver.