North Texas Daily

The Parkland shooting on Valentine’s Day was a horrific, brutal, evil act. I am both sad and furious.

There are so many facets of the event with which people and the media have taken issue that one can spend endless hours browsing headlines about whose fault it was, who made a mistake or how it could have been prevented.

So, before you put this article down thinking it is yet another opinion piece about guns or our right to own them, I want you to know that — while I do have my own opinions on the matter — this piece has nothing to do with guns nor does it dabble in the realm of “who screwed up.” Rather, I want to discuss something that should be common knowledge, and I am angry that I or anyone else has some kind of obligatory compulsion to remind people of this:

Everyone cares about the deaths of children. Everyone wants to find avenues by which society can be made safer. And, most importantly, if someone disagrees with you on what solutions might solve this problem, it does not mean they do not care about those who suffered or are currently suffering.

It is egregious and morally reprehensible to suggest if someone disagrees with you then they must not care.

And it is happening on both sides of the political aisle: David Hogg, an outspoken survivor of the Parkland shooting, said on Monday “these politicians really don’t care about these children’s lives.” This isn’t the first time that he has made comments along these lines.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Dana Loesch, the NRA’s national spokeswoman, said at the Conservative Political Action Conference “many in legacy media love mass shootings.”

These comments are all morally decrepit and deserve nothing short of strict scrutiny. It saddens me these are only a few of many examples of such heinous rhetoric.

I feel horrible for Hogg and what he had to go through — I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. But his experience does not provide him with a hall pass for immoral rhetoric. Of course politicians care about the lives of children.

The same goes for members of legacy media. Loesch was entirely out of line suggesting anyone loves mass shootings. Of course they don’t love mass shootings. I will say it again: it is morally reprehensible to assign motives like that to anyone, regardless of their politically prescribed solutions to handling an issue.

This leads to, in my opinion, the most disgusting comment that I have heard so far.

Another student, Cameron Kasky, said to Marco Rubio on a CNN Town Hall “it’s hard to look at you and not look down a barrel of an AR-15 and not look at Nicholas Cruz.”

I know I sound like a broken record, but I can’t emphasize it enough. It is so incredibly disgusting to make a comment like this. To liken Rubio to an individual who walked into a school and senselessly murdered innocent children is outrageous, and it steals culpability from Cruz’s actions.

Why am I highlighting these morally abhorrent comments, you ask? What significance does it hold?

We as a society cannot come to an agreement on any solution if the default belief is that one’s political opponent is inherently evil and wants to see people die.

We must start discussions about solutions from the groundwork that we all want the same thing: a safer, more prosperous community. This is not to suggest, however, that politics and opinions should be pushed aside and forgotten. But those political opinions can exist in the same world as the belief that no one wants to see mass shootings and dying children.

I believe reasonable solutions can be reached if we drop the idea that political opponents are truly evil.

So, let’s start there, on foundational common ground.

Featured Image: Illustration by Gabby Evans