CARLTON FLETCHER: It’s not the guns, it’s the kids

Mister Saturday Night Special, You got a barrel that’s blue and cold. Ain’t good for nothin’ But put a man six feet in a hole.

— Lynyrd Skynyrd

I’m not going to enter the guns vs. no-guns debate that always comes up in the immediate aftermath of the latest mass killing in this country.

With shrewd marketing people manipulating gun owners by assuring them any mention of gun control is an attempt by “liberals” and “the other side” to “take our guns away” and “do away with the Second Amendment” — a tactic that usually sends gun and ammo sales skyrocketing — I know any hope of having an open and honest discussion about the matter is less than zero.

And with folks on the other side who utilize each new tragedy to try and sell their pie-in-the-sky, perfect world where there are no guns equally as obstinate when it comes to meaningful dialog, there’s no way such a thing as an intelligent gun debate will ever take place in this country.

What sickens me, though, is that in their quest to demonize individuals and groups that have differing viewpoints, the lunatic fringe on both sides of the gun issue never seem to get around to mourning the loss of innocent lives. Instead, they use these murdered victims to try and prove their particular brand of pretzel logic:

“If just one of those high school kids or one of their teachers had had a weapon, this would have ended differently …” “If no one had access to guns, this bad person who killed these children would have been harmless …”

Meanwhile, the body count mounts.

It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic, this knee-jerk reaction by sides trying to hold onto or gain ground any time gun-related tragedy strikes in our country. When we can’t offer prayers and condolences to parents whose 5- and 6-year-old children were slaughtered by another gun-wielding madman because we’re too busy defending or condemning ourselves or the other side, we have a serious problem in our country.

When we take potshots at the lifestyle of victims gunned down at a gay nightclub rather than recoil at the horror of their murder, we’ve moved to the very verge of losing our souls.

And when we try to blame parents who are suffering unthinkable loss for not doing a better job of … God knows what … when you’re grasping at straws, you’ll say anything … we have far surpassed the point of no return.

But, you know what? As I have ignored the idiotic ramblings of both sickening sides of this trite, macabre back-and-forth, I’ve found a tiny measure of hope that’s allowed me think just maybe that thread of decency that’s always bound this country still exists. I’ve watched and listened to the comments of the kids at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkman, Fla., who have every right to still be traumatized by the violence that destroyed forever what innocence they might have been holding onto.

As the raving lunatics scream and cry about gun control and Second Amendment rights, these teenagers have eloquently and passionately mourned their classmates. And they’ve honored those classmates’ memories by begging — no, demanding — that the foolish grown-ups whose job it is to protect them stop their asinine bickering and do something.

These brave boys and girls — who a few short days ago got a first-person, up-close view of what the hell of war really looks like — these children whose lives were forever shattered, have bravely spoken out and, for perhaps the first time, called the so-called adults on the lunacy of their petty squabbling.

These are kids who could, by right, curl up in a corner and live the rest of their lives as victims. But they — and other young people like them across the country — have been bold enough to stand up for what they believe and demand that the powers that be hear them. If we wishy-washy adults weren’t so caught up in proving to the “opposition” that we’re right and we’d pay a little attention, perhaps we’d be the ones learning from these youngsters.