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As likely happened in many classrooms around the nation, last week my daughter's high school civics class watched the CNN-televised town hall in which Parkland mass shooting survivors, parents and teachers confronted Florida politicians about laws, and failures of law, that led to the murder of 17 people.
The takeaway for my daughter's class, according to her summary of it afterward, was that her class now considers Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to be one of the worst people in the world. His refusal to wave off NRA money—said directly to the latest shooting victims—was keenly noted. His behavior toward survivors—compared to the other politicians present, who were seen as more respectful—was keenly noted. His general fish-flopping-on-a-wooden-dock demeanor—a familiar sight to those of us who had to suffer through the Marco Rubio presidential campaign—was keenly noted. The town hall may not achieve much, in terms of solid actions to prevent the next mass shooting, but it appears to have united America's youth in the discovery that Sen. Marco Rubio, in specific, is an asshole.
So he's got that going for him. And from the polling, it appears more than just teenagers have come to that conclusion.
As Sen. Marco Rubio valiantly fish-flopped through his most pivotal national performance ever, however, it's not likely most viewers were aware just how deep in the NRA's pocket the ever-ambitious Rubio has been. Because as politicians debate whether American high schoolers should have access to AR-15s and similar assault rifles, Sen. Marco Rubio has repeatedly attempted to pass new laws demanding more of them be allowed to do just that.
But one of Rubio’s own bills, which he has introduced twice, would overturn an assault weapons ban and legalize gun sales for young adults in the nation’s capital, allowing 18- to 21-year-olds in Washington, D.C. to purchase weapons like the AR-15 used in the Parkland shooting if federal law doesn’t change.
The Florida Republican introduced the Second Amendment Enforcement Act in 2015 and again in 2017 that would drastically change the District of Columbia’s gun laws. After introducing the bill for the first time in 2015 while seeking the Republican presidential nomination, Rubio’s National Rifle Association’s grade went from a B+ to an A.
In the meantime, Rubio has, predictably, retreated to Twitter to subtweet Bible verses and generally tell his detractors how to Jesus.
Sorry, kids, your friends may be dead and others of you may have come a few inches from joining them, but the real tragedy here is that teenage school shooting survivors are "arrogant."