Weston Halsne,10, should not have a bullet fragment lodged in his neck, just an inch away from severing his carotid artery and ending his young life.
He should not have to be thanking his friend Victor, also 10, who selflessly threw himself across Weston’s body to shield his pal from getting hit by the gunman who was shooting through the church windows at the little children inside.
Victor and his little sister, who was also shot, are now thankfully recovering from the mass shooting at Minnesota’s Annunciation Church and Catholic School last Wednesday, Aug 27.
But we as a country should not be counting on the bravery of 10 year-old children to protect other children from the death unleashed by hate - filled individuals who have easy access to AR 15s and want to be famous for massacring kids at school.
I’m furious and beyond frustrated, and I hope you are to, that this country has turned its back on what you might think would be its most basic responsibility - to protect its children.
Protect them from ever being slaughtered while they are supposed to be learning in a safe space - their classrooms.
Is that too much to ask of American leaders? Isn’t that their job?
In this case, the murderer literally mocked every parent in the country by attacking his innocent and defenseless victims while they were praying - PRAYING! - at Mass before the school day even began at 8:30 am.
Instead - Donald Trump could barely stop his threats, name calling and general bullying on Truth Social - to issue the most lackluster written statement - before going back to spewing his nasty messages.
And I bet you’re with me on this - we weren’t surprised for one moment that he doesn’t give a shit about a couple of kids blown apart by AR -15s while praying.
He and the Republican party worship and protect a wildly expanded interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, because gun manufacturers are funneling millions into their pockets.
Just in case you haven’t read it, here is what the 2nd Amendment - which they use as an excuse not to protect America’s children - says: ‘ A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’
Yes, the Founding Fathers , determined that American citizens needed to be able able to defend themselves from the occupying British army and they wanted local villages and towns in the colonies to have the right to organize their own citizen - led militias.
Now, that 2nd Amendment has been used by the Supreme Court to give every lunatic the right to buy as many weapons of war as they want, in the name of freedom.
WHY DON’T PARENTS IN AMERICA LOVE THEIR KIDS MORE THAN THEIR GUNS?
But our kids don’t have the freedom to learn and play and pray in peace.
I just don’t know why we don’t love our children enough to vote for politicians who will pass laws to protect them including making AR 15s impossible for regular people to buy?
We shouldn’t be leaving the protecting up to a little boy called Victor, who has more courage in his little finger, than Donald Trump or any other Republican politician has in their fake bone spurs.
Now, in the US more children - 2581 in 2023 - are killed by gun violence every year than by any other cause. That’s an increase of 46% since 2019 .And no other country in the world even comes close to the bloodshed that the US perpetrates on its own babies.
This morning, I walked by a little family outside a local market where they had picked up coffee and breakfast sandwiches.
They were seated at an outdoor table with their adorable little daughter, about 3 years -old. They were so in love with their little girl that they had helped her set up her two Barbie dolls on the table , where she was feeding them breakfast as she ate her own.
It was the sweetest scene.
I have no idea of how these parents have voted.
But I do know that there are millions of parents of little girls who they adore, nevertheless voted for politicians who have voted repeatedly not just to keep the lax gun laws that has allowed other little girls in Uvalde, Texas and Sandy Hook, Connecticut to be slaughtered - but to make them even laxer.
For example, Trump’s Fox News / Washington DC Attorney General Jeanine Pirro just announced that people who open carry rifles or shotguns in the nation’s capital will no longer be hit with felony charges.
They will only be charged if they commit a crime with the guns they are now allowed to sling around on the streets.
Gee - do the parents and children of DC feel safer knowing that Trump and Jeanine are fine with people walking around with rifles on their city streets? Not to mention the National Guard that are also stalking the people and joggers of DC with their weapons of war over their shoulders.
Then I also have to wonder - did the parents of that sweet little girl with her Barbies love her enough to think about protecting her reproductive rights when they went to vote last November?
WHY WON’T PARENTS VOTE TO PROTECT THEIR DAUGHTERS?
Did they think ahead ten years to when she is 13 and likely physically capable of getting pregnant? Did they decide to vote to protect her right to an abortion in case she she was raped or had a romance?
In 20 Republican - dominated states, it’s already illegal for her to get an abortion. In Texas, the Republican House and Senate have just passed a law that will make it illegal for any doctor to mail abortion pills into the state.
It’s very likely that anti abortion extremist Governor Greg Abbott will sign it into law in the next 20 days.. So 13 year -old girls in Texas today are forced to give birth to babies - whether they want to or not - even if they are raped.
Another question: did the parents of the adorable little girl with her Barbies, think about protecting her right to access birth control when she is ‘grown up’, when they voted?
Republican states as well as RFK Jr in his position as Health and Human Services Secretary are moving to try to ban most if not all contraception, even condoms.
Or did they and millions of other parents decide that “owning the libs”, hating on trans people and immigrants, was far more important than protecting their precious daughters when they cast their votes last November?
For other parents, was it the potential of a tax cut that outweighed protecting their children from getting torn apart by guns or ensuring that their daughters could have control over their own bodies?
Or was it simply that in their heart of hearts, they loved Donald Trump more than their own Weston, Victor or that little girl with her Barbies?
Again, I don’t know how any of the parents of these particular children voted but millions of parents chose to cast their votes for Donald Trump and Republican politicians who claim to be ‘pro life’ and ‘pro family.’
And Trump and the GOP have proved that those phrases are the emptiest of phrases over and over since Nov 2024.
Democratic governor of Minnesota Tim Walz has called for a special legislative session to consider a package of tougher gun laws including an assault weapons ban, after the deadly Minneapolis school attack.
Meanwhile this was Donald Trump his toothless statement: “ Please join me in praying for everyone involved.” He also ordered flags at the White House, on military bases and on other federal buildings to be flown at half mast for 4 days.
Aside from the fact that it’s a joke that Donald Trump ever prays, his non action - no visit to Minneapolis and Annunciation school, no phone calls to the families of the victims makes it quite clear that he will do zero to protect America’s children from guns.
And on other fronts - did America’s Trump voting parents expect him and their Republican representatives to rip Medicaid away from half of the country’s kids who get all their healthcare, including vaccines through the program in their so called Big Beautiful Bill?
Children will die in this rich country because they can’t see doctors. All so a big tax cut could be given to billionaires like Trump, Elon Musk and all their cronies.
Did they vote for him to cancel all their free school lunches?
What about the special education classes that many of their children depend on? Those are on the cutting room floor too.
What if their kids want to go to college but need a student loan? Trump has slashed the pool of money for Pell grants which 40% of college students rely on to afford college?
Doesn’t sound very ‘pro family’ to me.
IS IT PRO FAMILY TO CUT FUNDS FOR FOR KIDS CANCER CURES?
But I do have to hold their feet to the fire on this one: when they voted for Trump, they knew he would likely nominate anti vaxxer RFK Jr to run all health programs in the country as Health and Human Services Secretary and they decided that the health of their families was a whole lot less important than giving the finger to the Dems.
Now, their precious little babies may not get vaccines.
Children are already dying in America from a preventable disease - measles - because their parents were convinced by RFK Jr’s propaganda promoting the lie that vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they prevent.
Countless more children will die because of this lie.
And God forbid, that any of the Trump voting parents has a child who gets a brain tumor. Did they know that Trump just canceled all the money for clinical trials on treatments for pediatric brain cancer?
Come on, any way you cut it - this is just plain evil.
What kind of monster wants little kids to suffer and die from brain cancer when there could be a treatment for them?
Trump and RFK Jr are those monsters.
When I think about it, in their own way, Donald Trump and every Republican lawmaker today are just as deliberate about wanting to kill kids as that monster armed with an AR 15 at the Annunciation Church and Catholic School.
They have no intention of protecting children and every intention of making it far far easier for them to die.
Spread the word and support Democratic candidates running for office in Virginia and New Jersey this Nov. Take constructive action to fight back against Republicans who won’t protect women and children!
The Party of Death - a new slogan for a formerly respectable political organization. Guns, deregulation, women's rights - at every level, Trump is leading the US over the brink.
Since they started worshipping the Antichrist 10 years ago, the GOP has become a death cult.🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬