WESTMINSTER — Kevin O'Keefe flatters himself if he thinks I was referring to him in my Viewpoint [“Why schools are attractive targets for mass shooters,” March 7].
I mentioned “highly qualified people,” specifically “ex-law enforcement, former military and even highly competent civilians - who will step up and volunteer to actively protect our most precious citizens.”
You, sir, are none of these.
You, sir, are among the true bullies. You stand with “misguided arrogance,” self-righteous indignation, while pointing fingers and calling names.
Then you demand that our children be allowed to die in concrete boxes, locked in, with nothing but “No Firearms Allowed” signs and soup cans to protect them, while wolves roam the halls.
You and your kind dance on the graves of children. You parade the innocent in front of cameras. You brainwash them into thinking that by giving up their rights to actual self-protection they will somehow “feel safe.” Your next campaign is ready to go the instant something terrible happens.
You renounce the carry of firearms in school while implying that only the government should protect our children. The same government that did nothing to stop the Parkland, Florida, killer during those 39 police complaints over eight years. The same government that hid in the parking lot while the killer slaughtered children. The same government that punished the true heroes who entered the school and stopped the killer in Florida.
I am not an NRA member, but I speak for myself and thousands of others.
But you use a billionaire's money and his social media network to spread your paranoia among the young, who now receive daily text messages and emails about horrific killings, and that unless they “protest” they will be the next victims.
You create fear. You create panic. You demonize people who have never done harm. You tell our children they should feel unsafe, and then you deny them the right to actual protection.
The “tolerant” anti-rights radicals like yourself have verbally attacked me at the mailbox, harassed my family at home, and written lies in the papers. But somehow we are the bullies?
Vermont's motto “Freedom and Unity” has been permanently destroyed by New York politics.
Whether gun laws change or not, neighbor now hates neighbor, the state is divided, and the people do not trust their politicians. The damage to the Green Mountain State is done.
Vermont may never recover.