School Shootings and Offshore Drilling

As I listened to All Things Considered on NPR on the way home from school today, news broke of a school shooting near Miami, Florida. At the time, only four people had been admitted to a local hospital as a result of the incident and there had been no mention of fatalities, only several injuries. I didn�t think much of it at the time. Like most Americans, I have grown accustomed to news of these kinds of attacks. When I started watching news coverage of the event on CNN and CBS and eventually the nightly news on CBS, it was being reported that seventeen kids had died. That number might rise even more throughout the next few hours.

            The shooting was carried out by an eighteen-year old who was expelled from the school that he attacked. He pulled a fire alarm minutes before dismissal and fired into the crowd of students evacuating the building because of the alarm. He also chose to target a smaller, more isolated building on the campus rather than the main building. This was a well-planned ambush.

            The craziest thing about this tragedy is that it happened in America. This happened in a school in America. It�s not like this happened in Syria or Somalia, like we often see on the news, this happened right here in our country. It could have happened at any school, including mine. The fact that this is the eighteenth school shooting to happen so far this year is completely baffling to me. Just as baffling, or more enraging, is the response to these shootings. Over five years ago, the Sandy Hook massacre took place at an elementary school in Connecticut. Since then, nothing has been done to combat gun violence at the national level. In between these two attacks there have been over 1600 mass shootings in America. I�ve covered this topic before here on the blog. Congress has the ability to make a change and enact common sense gun reform laws and ban assault weapons. The question is, what will it take?

            Back when Jon Stewart hosted the Daily Show on Comedy Central in 2015, he responded to the Emanuel AME shooting in Charleston with a powerful monologue. I think a lot of what he said then still applies now. The fact that so much of what he said holds true to this day just shows how little things have changed since 2015. You can watch the monologue here.

Rep. Mark Sanford speaking on the steps of the State House on Tuesday.

Tonight�s main story is a follow up to the offshore drilling debacle that I have covered twice previously here on the blog. Yesterday, hundreds of protestors rallied at the State House in Columbia surrounded by numerous lawmakers from both parties to protest the proposal by President Trump that would open up the majority of the East Coast to oil drilling. Since the proposal was made, Florida Governor Rick Scott convinced Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to remove Florida from the list of states effected by the proposal. Following that meeting, Governor McMaster of South Carolina eventually met with the Secretary on February 2^ndto discuss removing South Carolina from the list. Locally, there has been almost unanimous opposition to this plan on both sides of the aisle. The notable exceptions to this opposition are State Senator Jeff Duncan and Lieutenant Governor and gubernatorial candidate Kevin Bryant who support seismic testing to see what lies beneath the ocean off our coast. Both politicians cite the economic benefits of oil drilling as reasons for their support.

            The most notable speaker at the rally held in Columbia yesterday was US Representative Mark Sanford who took shots at both President Trump and Secretary Zinke during his remarks. He questioned, �If you can�t see an oil rig from the window in Mar-a-Lago, should you see one from the window at Pawleys Island?�

            I was a bit surprised to see Mark Sanford criticize the President so harshly considering he responded to the �shithole countries� comment from the President by saying, �It is what it is.� However, when you consider his constituency, things start to make more sense. He represents the Lowcountry, a place that would be severely affected by offshore drilling and where every municipality has declared their opposition to President Trump�s proposal. He also represents a place that then candidate Trump won back in 2016 easily. So, Sanford is only going to criticize the President in areas where he knows that the overwhelming majority of his constituency will back him up. It is also an election year and by showing up to this event he can tell voters that he fought to protect them against offshore drilling and that he stood up against the Trump administration. It�s all about strategy.

            The hesitance of Secretary Zinke to remove South Carolina from the list of states that would be affected by the drilling proposal should anger all South Carolinians especially considering he exempted Florida after a quick meeting with their governor. Florida is no more valuable than South Carolina. If Zinke were to never pardon South Carolina, it is not the end of the world for the opposition. This plan would no doubt be sued and go through the courts. The argument used to defeat the proposal would be equality, a value expressed numerous times within the Constitution. We shall see what happens. That�s all for this week.