I am, as I may have mentioned before, not a parent. Or a pet owner. Nor do I have any plants. But it's because of this that I typically keep my opinions about how other people raise their kids to myself.
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| It's important to me that nothing depends on me for its very life. |
I bring it up because I'm about to express some fairly strong opinions about a Virginia parent and gun enthusiast called Amelia King. In a school--hang on, I should probably mention first that Virginia recently swore in a new governor, Glenn Youngkin who, making good on campaign promises, has used his power of executive orders to make masks optional for school kids--that is, now it's up to the parents, not the schools, which is the right's new thing right now: parental rights. Don't like masks? Parental rights. Upset that schools might teach that slavery was bad? Parental rights. Hate gay people? Parental rights.
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"I don't personally have COVID right
now, so it must be over with, right?"
-Youngkin, Republicaning |
And I'm not saying that I'm against parents having rights--again, I'm not one so what do I know? But it's a policy that doesn't work if parents are say, uninformed, misinformed, or just rabid-foam right-wing crazy. Which brings us back to Amelia King who, at a school board meeting where the district was trying to decide what to do now that a reckless governor pandering to his base just made their lives even more difficult, announced that if her kids were asked to wear masks, she'd be
showing up to school armed. You know, to murder people.
"My children will not come to school on Monday with a mask on. Alright? That's not happening. And I will bring every single gun loaded and ready to--"
-Amelia King, parent of children
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Above: King, seen here promising to come to her children's
school armed if the board doesn't do what she wants. |
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| "Well I mean, she's white so..." |
Um, and that wasn't for effect she just ran out of time. Like, everyone gets three minutes to speak, and King's simply elapsed. So mid death threat, when someone on the board let her know that her time was up, she just said "See ya'll on Monday..." and took her seat. Well, that bit probably was for effect. I mean, the unspoken follow up being "...when I come here to shoot people." Anyway, she's been arrested and charged, and is even now
out on bail--which, wait, why is she out on bail? And does she still have guns? Tell me someone confiscated her guns...
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| Oh...shit, right... |
And what exactly was her game plan anyway? If the board did impose some kind of mask rule, did she think she'd roll in wave her guns around, maybe plug a couple administrators and then everyone would just maskless-ly go about their day? Is there some scenario in which someone waves a gun around in a school that doesn't end in a lockdown and law enforcement shooting someone? These are the threats of a violent sociopath, did she think she'd be hailed as some kind of hero?
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"Yes, but what about every Amricans'
right to shoot people you don't agree with?"
-Gov. Younkin...actual quote* |
So this is where I express those strong feelings I mentioned earlier. This person shouldn't be allowed to own guns or kids. Wait, do you own kids? Like I said, I'm not sure how parenthood actually works. But I think my broader point stands, and that is that we're all in this together. Sure, parents have rights, but it only works if
all the parents have rights. If one family insists on sending a kid to school without a mask, then they're taking the choice away from other parents to keep their kids safe.
Asking everyone to mask up in a pandemic isn't an infringement of rights, it's the price of admission if you want to exist in a society. Parental rights, sure, fine, but it kind of feels like parental responsibility should factor in there someone too, right?
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| Hey kids, remember: the lesson is "when you don't get your way, try guns." |
*ok, not an actually quote, but I mean, it's implicit
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