REPUBLICANS: WHERE ARE YOU? WHAT GOOD ARE YOU?

Oh, we talk a good game.  We have our clubs and our meetings and we talk about how successful we are at this game of politics.  And when it matters…where the heck are we?  BREC, RLC, PATRIOTS, REAGAN’S, REPUBLICAN WOMEN…where are you?  The left is orchestrating a nationwide attack on the 2nd Amendment and they are present and vocal.  Where are we?  Nowhere to be seen.  That’s sad.

While the Parkland kids (and even kids here) along with the teachers’ unions, Media Matters, the Women’s March, Everytown for Gun Safety and the newly active Brevard Mothers Demand Action group are showing up, spreading misinformation and, even worse spreading ignorant opinion about how to protect our schools, our side is doing a remarkable disappearing act and not being seen or heard at all.  School Board members have been lamenting this to me through the entire discussion that has been taking place since Valentine’s Day.  These groups have effectively turned the conversation to gun control instead of school safety.  And…they have no clue at all on the issue of stopping an active shooter.  Yet, they are loud, they are proud and they are about to create an illusion of safety from their ignorance.  

There is no way that one resource officer in each school is adequate protection for an otherwise target rich environment.  The vocal groups are uninformed on the training our officers receive in this regard and don’t hear the fact that the school guardians proposed in the STOMP program will be deputized officers with more training in active shooters than even SWAT cops receive initially.    

If there has ever been a cause for conservative and Republican groups to get behind it is this one.  So, where are you?  Why are you mired in infighting over perceptions of political power when you are exerting none at all?  You have been a force in elections, at least in members turning out to the polls if nothing else.  Why are you silent on this most important of issues involving not only the safety of our schools, but the foundations of our republic?

Leadership is glaringly absent and that has to stop now.  You so called chairmen and presidents, you active members and door knockers, it’s time to at least write an email to the School Board and Superintendent, to show up at a board meeting and let them see the groups that would stack bodies in our schools as opposed to protecting them are not unopposed.  While I do believe our board will not perceive the meeting demonstrations as representative of this community, it would be good for them to see support from those who know better than those that espouse ignorance and advocate for gun control that leaves the issue unaddressed.

So, I ask again, where are you?  Where are the leaders?  Isn’t it time to step up?  For if we don’t need you now, the reality is we don’t need you at all!