One mother is so fed up with the cultural and media narrative of blaming the object for the crime, she decided to join the NRA. Lauren DeBellis Appell, former press secretary for Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., penned an opinion article for foxnews.com.
“This battle we’re facing isn’t about guns, it’s about evil—evil in the hearts of those who choose to act with a gun.”
In her piece, DeBellis Appell wrote that she has grown tired of the histrionic virtue-signaling and “absence of common sense that I’ve witnessed recently.” After the Feb. 14 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., many mainstream media outlets have spun the anger, fear and hatred surrounding the tragedy into ratings gold that vilifies Second Amendment supporters, gun owners and the NRA.
The real fight is not about banning guns, according to DeBellis Appell. “This battle we’re facing isn’t about guns, it’s about evil—evil in the hearts of those who choose to act with a gun.”
She calls on shining a light into the culture and society that has been created and confronting it. Calling it “depraved” in the near destruction of family values and morality, DeBellis Appell said she is tired of people wanting to cure the “symptom” and not critically thinking about solving the problem. Disarming Americans, she said, will not stop the evil that grows in people’s hearts, especially if there are other reasons for how it got there.
Citing examples of domestic terrorists who used fertilizer bombs, vehicles and other objects to cause chaos and panic, DeBellis Appell highlighted that federal and local authorities, with their many resources, still failed to protect the students in Florida, though they were given warnings ahead of the tragedy.
“In light of those revelations, the last thing we need to do is disarm law-abiding citizens, send our kids to school and hope for the best. Edmund Burke said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,’” she wrote.
DeBellis Appell debunked the myth that it is the NRA, and by extension, law-abiding Second Amendment-loving gun owners, who walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and slaughtered 17 innocent people.
“That was a deranged, sick, evil person who had a history of red flags that nobody bothered to address leading up to that day,” she said. “Rather than putting the blame on him, it’s the NRA and anyone who supports them who are the target.”
Those with evil in their hearts will not obey the law, she went on to say, and removing guns will not make her feel any safer about sending her own kids to school.
