Over the weekend, millions of patriotic Americans participated in the March For Our Lives protests, lobbying for gun control in order to put an end to the epidemic of gun violence that claims countless lives.
in the video that you can see below, former senator Rick Santorum says that teens who want to not be murdered shouldn"t ask their government to pass laws to make them safer.
He says that students would be better served by … learning to perform CPR.
The next time that you see someone present CNN, of all networks, as the "liberal news source," remember that the network gave Trump billions in free air time during the election … and that they pay money to people like Rick Santorum to voice their opinions.
The former senator saw millions of teens marching with their families across America, hoping that they can finally pressure the government into protecting its citizens from lethal weapons of war like the AR-15.
Many Americans felt inspired or even, for the first time in too long, hopeful that things would change.
Rick Santorum felt that these courageous teens were … misguided.
He thinks that instead of asking the government — that is supposed to represent them and their interests — they should instead take individual action to prepare for future shootings.
"How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that."
That statement went viral because many found it to be mind-boggling.
First of all, CPR helps with only a select number of health situations. Very rarely does it do any good when someone has been shot.
Gunshots require very specific treatment that only a fraction of surgeons are prepared to perform.
And it also must be performed in a hospital.
Furthermore, of course, there is the absurdity of demanding that teens accept that mass shootings are and will always be inevitable. These teens and their families and millions of others are demanding that their elected representatives
One wonders what function Rick Santorum believes that government should serve, if not to protect its citizens.
Now, Santorum"s statement didn"t go unchallenged, and it was pointed out to him that these teens are taking action.
"They took action to ask someone to pass a law," he counters.
He lays out what — aside from, uh, CPR classes — he believes that teens who would prefer to not be murdered should do.
"They didn"t take action to say, "How do I, as an individual, deal with this problem? How am I going to do something about stopping bullying within my own community?""
It"s interesting that he brings up the "bullying" myth. Bullying is real, but the idea that it drives people to become shooters has been debunked, though people have been pushing that narrative since Columbine.
Rick Santorum continues with his list of questions that he believes that people who don"t fancy the idea of dying in a hail of bullets should ask themselves.
""What am I going to do to actually help respond to a shooter?"… Those are the kind of things where you can take it internally, and say, "Here"s how I"m going to deal with this. Here"s how I"m going to help the situation.""
What he is talking about is a culture of resignation, where people accept that mast shootings will happen and must happen and live every day prepared to lose friends and loved ones.
It"s one thing to be prepared for an emergency. It"s another to focus solely on preparation and not try to prevent the situation from occurring in the first place.
But Santorum sees lobbying the government to protect its citizens as a sign that people lack personal responsibility.
"Instead of going and protesting and saying, "Oh, someone else needs to pass a law to protect me.""
While his whole take is questionable, the fact that Santorum suggested CPR as a solution to gun violence is absurd.
He also says that "phony gun laws don"t solve problems." We"re not sure what about any of this is "phony," but gun laws have been clearly demonstrated to work.
Of course, Tomi Lahren stuck a gun down her pants, and the NRA countered that the Parkland survivors wouldn"t be famous if their classmates had not been shot … which is kind of the whole point.
So it seems that it"s safe to say that those who oppose gun control legislation are scrambling and voicing a variety of responses and, presumably, hoping that one of these counter-arguments will "stick."
We wouldn"t want you to google "Santorum video" (don"t ask), so please take a look at the video of his statement below.
