{"id":66041,"date":"2018-02-22T11:00:37","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T17:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=66041"},"modified":"2018-02-22T05:52:00","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T11:52:00","slug":"dear-pawns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=66041","title":{"rendered":"Dear Pawns"},"content":{"rendered":"

To:\u00a0 Parkland High School Students \/ Sudden Media Stars
\nFrom:\u00a0 Mitch Berg, peasant
\nRe:\u00a0 Your sudden stardom<\/p>\n

Students,<\/p>\n

First things first – I’m sorry for the trauma that happened to you and your school.\u00a0 You might want to have a word with not just the FBI, but your school board, who was apparently aware of Nik Cruz’s growing madness<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyway – condolences.<\/p>\n

Now – you’re not gonna like this, but some of you will thanks me, someday.\u00a0 I’m going to do something none of the adults in your life – especially those people whew flew down from Washington and New York with the bales of airline tickets and hotel reservations, barely hours after the shooting – are going to do.<\/p>\n

I’m going to tell you the truth.<\/p>\n

You’re being used<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I get it.\u00a0 \u00a0You’ve been through a traumatic experience.\u00a0 But you need to know that\u00a0none of the things\u00a0<\/em>you’re ostensibly campaigning for would have prevented the shooting at your school.<\/p>\n

Background checks?\u00a0 Florida has a huge gap it the mental health information it reports to the feds.\u00a0 Just like Minnesota.\u00a0 It wouldn’t – didn’t – work.<\/p>\n

Banning “Assault Weapons?”\u00a0 It’s been tried – you were toddlers when the last ban ended.\u00a0 Even its supporters said it was just a feel-good law that did nothing about crime.<\/p>\n

Bagging on the NRA?\u00a0 Yeah, that’ll save lives.<\/p>\n

Repealing the Second Amendment?\u00a0 \u00a0Please.\u00a0 Mass shootings and\u00a0denying\u00a0<\/em>the right to keep and bear arms is\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>correlated with mass shootings.<\/p>\n

Look, I get it; when I was your age, I thought the NRA was a CIA plot to make gun companies rich.\u00a0 it was an idea put in my head by the parents and grandparents of the people chaperoning you around DC and the CNN studios.\u00a0 They are using you as another way to try to turn the tide in a\u00a0political\u00a0<\/em>battle they’ve been losing for thirty years, now.<\/p>\n

You are being used as props.\u00a0 Pawns.\u00a0 Stage dressing.<\/p>\n

Most of you will figure it out someday, with any luck.<\/p>\n

That is all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To:\u00a0 Parkland High School Students \/ Sudden Media Stars From:\u00a0 Mitch Berg, peasant Re:\u00a0 Your sudden stardom Students, First things first – I’m sorry for the trauma that happened to you and your school.\u00a0 You might want to have a word with not just the FBI, but your school board, who was apparently aware of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[325],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-66041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-gun-control","tag-open-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66042,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66041\/revisions\/66042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}