Meaningful Action

I was pretty disappointed when I read reports that Obama had called for “meaningful action” following the shooting tragedy Friday. If you’re not familiar with the lively debate over the Second Amendment in this country, those words mean that he is planning to push through tough new laws to take away our rights to arm ourselves. It was disappointing to hear him say that, because I have always enjoyed giggling when I hear fear-mongerers misguidedly ascribe a radical left-wing communist agenda to the Obama regime.

I particularly enjoyed giggling when everyone sprinted to their local gun store to stock up on handguns after he was first elected, fearing he would ban all firearms on his first day of office. I’m pretty sure this happens whenever a Democrat is elected. As it turned out, he passed no radical left-wing gun control laws in his first four years, which is not very surprising since presidents can’t make laws. I expected the same for the next four years, but this talk of “meaningful action” disturbed me.

Until I finally sat down and actually watched the president’s brief news conference from Friday. As usual, the headlines gave a rather inaccurate portrayal of what he said.

First of all, Obama looked like hell. What a sucky job it must be to be president.

Second of all, the exact words he (or his speechwriter) used were, “…these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children, and we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this regardless of the politics.”

That is a classic example of a statement from a politician that can be interpreted fifty thousand different ways and ultimately makes no promises or commitments in any direction. If you’re against guns, you could hear that and think, “Yeah! More guns off the streets!” If you’re for guns, you could hear that and think, “Yeah! Armed men in every classroom!”

Ultimately, I doubt there will be any meaningful action from the president. As for Congress, though… who knows?