Actions taken by the Denver School Board and Democrats in the state legislature following last week’s tragic shooting show just how dangerous progressive policies are when put into action.
Crimes that have been punished since Moses came down from the mountain seem to no longer be a big deal, unless committed against a protected class.
And now Democrat state lawmakers insist they can protect society from criminals by instead criminalizing those who seek to protect themselves, turn family and neighbors against one another, and make trial lawyers rich so they can continue funding their political campaigns.
Bills passed in a weekend session of the state House would allow parents to sue car makers if someone steals a car and runs over a loved one. Oops. We meant to say guns. Parents can sue gun makers if someone steals one of their products from a locked safe and commits a crime, with most of the profits going to trial lawyers.
Alex Murdaugh, trial attorney.
Also, the red flag law was expanded to allow pretty much anyone in the community to get an extreme risk protection order against gun owners to take away their weapons — a favorite neighbor against neighbor tactic employed by communist nations.
And, the House introduced a bill raising the age limit to buy a firearm from 18 to 21.
Last week’s shooting was committed by a 17-year-old, who tragically committed suicide afterwards.
None of these bills would have prevented the shootings at East High School this year.
But having school resource officers on campus to help protect against school shootings and on-campus violence, that could have prevented violence.
Now under pressure from the community to protect their children, the school board reluctantly recanted their edict to rid campus of police protection, but just until they can find another way to kick them out the door again to appease their progressive Gods.
In a weekend editorial, The Gazette writes that many Colorado school districts benefit from having school resource officers who serve as positive role models for children who are taught to be wary of cops. And the officers develop positive friendships, even steering students onto the straight path.
Some of the district’s own principals had pleaded with the DPS board back in 2020 not to dismiss the school resource officers. They attested to the good work they officers did and the vital security they provided.
Instead, the board chose to play politics with the welfare of Denver’s kids.
Incredibly, board President Xochitl Gaytan still wasn’t chastened at a Thursday news conference. She attempted to shift blame, observing, “I believe that there’s been a societal failure.”
She and her fellow board members would do better to focus on their own failure. And voters would do well to remember it — in next fall’s election.
Blaming society instead of holding individuals responsible for their own behavior is so 1970s, when liberal lawyers in their heyday tried to argue their clients out of heinous crimes that were always someone else’s fault.
And yet it appears as if the progressive reincarnation of failed liberal social experiments of the last century is doomed to repeat itself, as history so often does.
Democrats have been passing “gun reform measures” for decades rather than addressing crime, which has only emboldened criminals to take advantage of an unarmed populace.
It’s time they stop hitting themselves.