The month since 17 people were brutally gunned down at a high school in Parkland, Florida has seen certain elements of the right reveal their true colors. While they cheer conservative teens like C. J. Pearson and Millie March for speaking up, hearing kids speak up for liberal causes seems to be taboo.
That’s the only plausible conclusion you can draw from the responses we’ve seen from a number of right-wing luminaries after the survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School started speaking out. Some of them suggested they were “crisis actors”–fake survivors trucked in to gin up support for gun control. Others suggested their grief was real–but they were reading cue cards from the left. Uh huh. As if kids can’t be articulate on their own?
The latest example of the latter came on Wednesday night from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. In the wake of a nationwide wave of kids walking out of school to demand reform of our gun laws, Carlson actually suggested that they had no right to speak out on this. Watch here.
Carlson started out by peddling the line that the kids were being exploited by liberals and gun control activists. He claimed that the kids couldn’t possibly be free agents.
But things really went off the rails when Carlson debated Igor Volsky of Guns Down America. He claimed that most of the kids weren’t really in the democratic process because they weren’t old enough to vote. So therefore, they shouldn’t be allowed to have any say at all in the gun debate.
“So if they’re too young to buy guns, why should they be making my gun laws?”
Volsky pointed out that the kids weren’t trying to make laws, but pressing the ones who actually make the laws to do something to keep them safe. Carlson was not impressed.
“They’re not citizens. They’re children. They’re not of 18.”
Wait a minute. So kids don’t have the right to speak up on the issues that affect them because “they’re not citizens”? Is that what you’re telling us, Tucker? It sure sounds like it.
Not surprisingly, Twitter was not pleased.
You really should head security at the White House. You could scare off the worst of the bad guys with your ever present hideous scowl. Or as Trevor Noah so aptly put it, "He has the face of someone who walked in on his grandparents boning." @TuckerCarlson
— karen Golden (@ksgoldenone) March 16, 2018
Tucker Carlson: Children don’t deserve the same rights as adults.
Also Tucker Carlson: Fetuses deserve the same rights as adults. https://t.co/fRt61zeP03
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) March 15, 2018
https://twitter.com/sadhatterskwrl/status/974572569335562240
Tucker Carlson asked why teenagers should be making his gun laws if they aren’t even old enough to buy a gun
Bc no old, white, cis male has ever made a law about something he’s not qualified to
— Resting Witch Face (@lindseyjsnider) March 16, 2018
But the best reaction by far came from Trevor Noah, who let Carlson have it on Thursday night’s “Daily Show.” Watch here.
Tonight at 11/10c, Fox News short-circuits after #NationalWalkoutDay pic.twitter.com/PGOTJMvovX
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) March 16, 2018
With typical bluntness, Noah reminded Carlson of something that is all too obvious.
“Get the f**k out of here, man! If kids are old enough to be shot, they’re old enough to have an opinion about being shot.”
Kids wanting to have a say in whether they’ll be safe in school? What a concept. Apparently that’s an alien concept to Carlson.
(featured image courtesy Noah’s Facebook)
