Rick Santorum just viciously attacked the Parkland student survivors and gave them disgusting advice

Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to send a message to the gun lobby and their paid servants in Congress: enough is enough. Led by the Parkland teenagers who took a stand after seeing their peers gunned down around them this past Valentines’ Day, never has the hope that someday we might be able to send our kids to school without fear of them being killed on their way to algebra been brighter.

But it appears that the desperate right-wing efforts to rewrite the narrative away from the need for commonsense gun safety reforms will not be cowed by the appeals of children.

Disgraced former Senator turned infuriating CNN-talking head Rick Santorum displayed the disgusting contempt that the conservative movement holds for these brave kids when the so-called Christian decided to use his Sunday to criticize the Parkland teens for “wanting someone else to solve their problems.”

“How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that?” said Santorum.

“They didn’t take action to say how do I, as an individual, deal with this problem. ‘How am I going to do something about stopping bullying within my own community? What am I going to do to actually help respond to a shooter?'”

Those are the kinds of things where you can take it internally and say here’s how I’m going to deal with it, here’s how I’m going to help the situation instead of going and protesting, saying ‘Oh, someone else needs to pass a law to protect me.'”

Republicans love the “looking for someone else to solve their problems” line, which conveniently places the burden of guilt on the individual. It completely ignores the fact that the vast majority of “problems” that people face in their lives are the result of systematic inequalities stemming from a deliberately exploitative and extortionist politico-economic system that serves the needs of capital instead of the well-being of the people.

It’s deeply disingenuous and misleading – not to mention entirely inappropriate for this situation, where the problem is someone murdering you with an assault rifle.

CPR won’t do a damn thing for a person whose body has been ravaged by the high-velocity bullet of an AR-15. A doctor who treated the victims recounted this scene of horror from the attack:

One of my ER colleagues was waiting nervously for his own children outside the school. While the shooting was still in progress, the first responders were gathering up victims whenever they could and carrying them outside the building. Even as a physician trained in trauma situations, there was nothing he could do at the scene to help save the victims who had been shot with the AR-15. Most of them died on the spot; they had no fighting chance at life.

What good could CPR possibly do for a person who has been wounded with the devastating power of a bullet fired from an assault rifle?

The right-wing’s efforts to Boy Scout their way out of having to do anything to resolve the epidemic of gun violence that kills nearly 35,000 people a year is utter nonsense that shouldn’t be taken seriously by anybody – and certainly not given airtime on a network like CNN.

It fundamentally accepts the idea that mass shootings are a fact of life that can’t be avoided, and that is absolutely unacceptable for a civilized society to tolerate.

Why they still employ this repugnant bigot and colossal idiot is beyond anybody’s understanding.

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Colin Taylor

Managing Editor

Colin Taylor is the managing editor of the Washington Press. He graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. He now focuses on advancing the cause of social justice, equality, and universal health care in America.