When kids are shot to death in school, “thoughts and prayers” are offered. But when anyone suggests making it more difficult to obtain firearms—especially assault weapons—some of the same folks who grace those kids with their “thoughts and prayers” grow apoplectic: They rage about “losing” their “Second Amendment Rights” and argue that a school shooting now and then is a “price” we have to pay for “freedom.”
I would bet that among such stalwart defenders of our “rights” are the ones ordering that a “ghost” bike be removed from its place by a school because students would be traumatized by seeing it.
This scenario is unfolding at Sugar Mill Elementary School in Port Orange, Florida. Tara Okhovatian placed the memorial to ShaoLan Kamaly, a 10-year old who was struck and killed as she rode her bike to school last spring. Okhovatian is a friend of Kamaly’s family and said her son loved playing with ShaoLan, who said she didn’t like princesses because they “don’t do anything but wait for guys to save them.”
Okhovatian tried to save her memory. But she has been ordered to remove the makeshift shrine or law enforcement would “retrieve” it.
Ah, where else but in Florida, where it’s easier to get a gun than almost anyplace that’s not an active war zone, but helping kids remember their classmate is deemed too dangerous?
