This will prompt no real interest, or outrage, from all those fighting like hockey fighters to be the Republican Party’s Presidential nominee, because the shooting in Knoxville, Tenn. the other night had nothing to do with radical Islam.
The guys with the guns, the ones who went around shooting up Knoxville, didn’t have names like Farook or Malik.
One of the shooters, dead himself later, was named Brandon Perry, age 23. Another bad guy on a night of shooting in Knoxville was named Christopher Bassett, a felon in possession of a firearm, and stop me if you’ve heard that one before. Where did Bassett, felon, get his gun? He got it somewhere. There’s more than 200 million guns in this country, and that number may be low. You’re sometimes surprised that they aren’t just falling out of trees.
ZAEVION DOBSON, HS FOOTBALL STAR, DIES SHIELDING GIRLS FROM SHOOTING
But we’re not supposed to change anything with guns after another year of shooting, not even suggest that gun-show loopholes should be closed up, or that we need to take a look at the entire process of background checks. We’re not even supposed to suggest that there is no good reason why anyone in a civilized country should own an automatic weapon.
Mental illness wasn’t an issue in Knoxville, even though that always provides convenient cover for those who want no changes to the gun laws or the easy access to guns, at least when the Second Amendment isn’t providing cover for these people. They are the ones with screws loose, as they continue to believe that if we even take a look at the Second Amendment that before long the government will, in the words of Gov. Cuomo, “be coming up the driveway with tanks to get their guns.”
We just had more bad guys with guns in Knoxville, gangs on the loose, grudges being settled, and when the shooting finally stopped a Fulton High School football player, Zaevion Dobson, was dead.
Here was one of the comments you heard in the aftermath of Zaevion Dobson’s death:
“These cowardly and senseless acts of violence must stop. We should be preparing to celebrate the Christmas holiday, but now we have two men who are dead.”
Those comments did not come from the President Obama, who stopped in San Bernardino on Friday to mourn with family members of the dead there, a President actually accused by the bullhorn media of politicizing that terrible event by even showing up on his way to a family vacation in Hawaii.
No, those comments about cowardly and senseless acts came from Knoxville Chief of Police David Rausch after a night when his city became the latest to become a shooting gallery, like some road-show version of Chicago. You wonder if anybody wants to accuse Chief Rausch of politicizing Zaevion Dobson.
The kid was 15-years-old, and died trying to shield three girls, diving on them as he tried to keep them safe. We always come away from another shooting with stories about heroes becoming victims, with acts as noble as any battlefield across the world has ever seen. When the President gives his State of the Union address in a couple of weeks, and speaks of guns, Zaevion Dobson’s family should be in the audience, sitting with members of Congress who refuse to do anything about guns.
So it was a high school sophomore this time, No. 24 from Fulton High, dead on the street, on his way home from watching a high school basketball game, his dreams dying along with all the decency and good in him, and all the possibilities of his life, in football and everything else.
Try telling the family of Zaevion Dobson that terrorists with guns didn’t come to their neighborhood on Thursday night. Ask them what new laws and new world order about keeping our borders safe could have kept that kid safe from a gun and a bullet as he gave his life to save others. Then wait and see which of the tough guys running for President want to grab their own bullhorns in his memory.
They all act as if terror in San Bernardino has become commonplace in America, as if what happened there happened a couple of weeks after Sept. 11, 2001. No. What is commonplace is what happened in Knoxville. We talk about keeping our borders safe and we couldn’t even keep the 2700 block of Badgett Drive in Knoxville on Thursday night.
Sixteen days ago, the faces of gun violence were the faces of the dead in San Bernardino, and the outrage was profound from all those who want to be President, because the shooters were pathetic ISIS wannabes, using guns that were purchased for them by another pathetic no-lifer named Marquez, who was finally arrested this week.
This weekend, though, the face of gun violence in our shooting gallery of a country is Zaevion Dobson, high school football player, 15, dead a week before Christmas. He was the latest American in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was the one at the front of the line. But no worries. The line moves.
