A Clash of Two Rights and an Epic Struggle About to Unfold

 

What we have in the US today is a conflict between the historic right to bear arms, forged in 18th and 19th century political conditions, and the right of the nations teachers, students and families to feel safe from disturbed individuals armed with assault weapons. Though the right to bear arms has a long history and is deeply rooted in the culture of many families and communities, like all rights, it is subject to modification when it conflicts with other equally important rights ( Remember; the nation once affirmed the right to own slaves). We have now reached a point where a majority of the nation's school population feels unsafe because of the proliferation of assault weapons in the hands of unstable individuals. The people who work in our schools, predominantly women, are mobilizing to protect themselves and the children under their care. They are not going away. And they have the model of multiple women's mobilizations from the women's marches in the early days of the Trump Administration to the #metoo movement. This time, the NRA will be facing a gun control movement infused with the energy of a struggle for women's and children's rights. If it captures the imagination of the nation the way I suspect it will, the NRA may not be able to defuse it the way it has movements in the past. An epic struggle is about to break out on the American political landscape.