Tonight the NRA is celebrating, and the Republican Party simply doesn’t care as long as they continue to receive huge donations from the gun lobby. A 19-year-old man killed 17 young men and women outside and inside of a Florida high school today. Nikolaus Cruz began firing at students with a rifle outside of Douglas High School in Broward County. He had multiple magazines in his possession. He survived and is now in custody.

After killing five outside of the school, he entered the facility and murdered 12 more. Cruz had previously been expelled from the school.

Our nation is exceptional in the fact that ours is the only country in the world where slaughters such as this occur. This will be the third year in a row when the number of mass shootings has exceeded days on the calendar. Just ten percent of our nation’s people are obsessed with gun ownership, and they have the full support of the gun lobby; the NRA; and GOP politicians. The safety of the majority is not a priority for Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Steve King, John Cornyn, and every other Republican who receives campaign very large contributions from the NRA lobby. Of course your illegitimate president is a ‘huge’ fan of gun violence. But he is an idiot, and no one is surprised.

Discussions regarding second amendment rights are ludicrous. The safety of the majority outweighs the rights of a few to have their toys.

I am a true Constitutionalist. Every word of the Bill of Rights is precious to me. Not a single word in the Constitution guarantees the right of any regular citizen to Possess military weapons, or the high-output magazines used to fire dozens of rounds in a few seconds. No man or woman should be allowed to purchase a ‘bump stock,’ which transforms semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic weapons. Comprehensive background checks are not forbidden by the second amendment. No man or woman who has a history of mental illness should be allowed to purchase a weapon of mass destruction. If an individual is on Homeland Security’s ‘no-fly’ list, that person must not be allowed to legally buy an assault rifle or any other type of killing machine.

20 years ago this American shame should have been addressed seriously, but it has been ignored. After the slaughter of 20 small children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012, I was positive that although our government was virtually useless, this disaster would produce a change in our gun laws. Nothing has happened to this day. The deaths of 26 Americans was ignored by the entire Republican Party.

On October 1, 2017, a lone gunman who possessed at least 12 military weapons, and multiple bump stocks, slaughtered 58 men and women attending a music concert in Las Vegas. Nothing changed.

On November 5, 2017, 26 churchgoers in a small Texas town lost their lives at the pleasure of a lone gunman with an assault rifle. No action was taken by our government.

All of these events were actions by white terrorists.

Today 17 more American families will not sleep. They will be shedding tears as they mourn their loved ones. These young men and women will never become adults; will never marry, and will never produce grandchildren. Nobody in Washington cares. This is unforgivable, primarily because it could have been prevented. This is another instance in which Republicans prove that profit is more important than people.

There are many times when I am ashamed to be an American. This is just another one of them.

Op-ed by James Turnage

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