The Story of Orlando Harris

The story of Orlando Harris is one every American should know and it should stick with us as we go to the polls in November and decide who we want elected to represent us.

Orlando was a 19 year old boy from the heartland of America.  He had suffered  with mental illness for many years. and. his family did. everything. they could to not only get him the help he needed, but to ensure that he couldn’t hurt anyone else.  His. mother had him forcibly committed several times but as he got older she had less and less of an ability to do so.  At 19 he decided that he wanted a gun and on October 8th he went to a gun store in St. Charles, MO and attempted to buy an AR15.  He filled out the required form for the FBI background. check, was flagged by the system and the gun purchase was not allowed.  Not to be deterred he did what many people in this situation do, he found a private individual who owned a gun like that and purchased it from the seller in a private transaction that did not require a background check and went home locked and loaded.

His mother was so alarmed at this and. on October 15th she called the local police, stated her fears. and asked them to come and take the gun from her son.  The police arrived, briefly confiscated the weapon but then were forced to return it to Orlando because even though all parties knew that Orlando+Rifle=Danger, unfortunately they “did not have clear authority to temporarily seize the rifle” because the law had been followed and it was perfectly legal for Orlando the mentally ill 19 year old to possess a rifle.

The mother did not want the gun in the house and a deal was struck to resolve the situation.  A nearby family member came and removed the gun from the house and the the issue was temporarily mitigated.  However, somehow Orlando was able to retrieve his firearm from this family member and also stock up on 600 rounds of ammo, a boatload of magazines and a chest rig to cart all his gear in.  9 days later Orlando entered the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School and started shooting people.

While some states have passed a Red Flag law which allows a weapon to be taken away if someone is deemed a danger, Missouri does not have one and Republicans have fought hard to keep it that way.  The Mother who. was worried about her son had her hands tied.  The police had their hands tied.  The only one who didn’t have his hands tied was Orlando…  he had “freedom” and “2nd Amendment rights.”

This is exactly what Democrats have been warning us about for years.  This is exactly what Republicans have been fighting for.  The right to have a firearm is more important than the right to not be shot by one.

We. hear all sorts of vitriol about the Guns in America debate and both sides are adamant about their agenda.  However, sane adults and. responsible citizens at some point have to look at the facts and be willing to say “We were wrong.”  What the Orlando Harris situation shows us is that in this case the Democrats were right and the Republicans were wrong.   This is absolute proof that our gun control laws do not work and that if we made specific changes to them like requiring background checks for all gun purchases then Orlando Harris would not have been able to shoot this school up.

You’re going to continue hearing defenses from Republicans.  You’re going to hear it blamed on Mental Illness and our inability to magically fix a mentally ill person from using their legal firearm to shoot people with.  What you’re not going to hear is Republicans admit they were wrong and work with Democrats to make sure it never happens again.

There is nothing inherently bad about making a mistake in judgment and being wrong about something.  However, when we dig in, fail to honestly assess our beliefs and continue the same course of action we have a problem.  The politicians are not going to fix this and we absolutely are going to have more Orlandos buying guns and killing people.

83% of Americans support Universal Background Checks and yet close to 40% of guns are purchased without them.  This is literally insanity.

Listen, you may have some grievances with the Democrat party, I. know I do.  You may not agree with them on all sorts of things.  You may think they are corrupt, you may think they’re anti-religion or enacting socialist policies or whatever.  But there is one simple fact that is indisputable at this point…  they are right about guns and they’re the only party with a viable chance of winning that has a real solution to our children being murdered in schools.

It’s time for Americans to put politics aside, be willing to cross party lines and vote for what is important and fix the gun problem in America.