Those who stand up for our children are America’s standouts

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Sunday, May 29, 2022 | 2 a.m.

Tuesday night was one of those times in Las Vegas when we were allowed to celebrate all that is good in our community.

The Las Vegas Sun recognized the best of Clark County’s student-athletes and their coaches and honored them with Sun Standout Awards.

The event held at Michael Gaughan’s South Point Hotel was filled with nominees, many of whom carried 4.0 grade averages, and most of whom were on their way to top universities on full-ride athletic or academic scholarships.

There were top-rated basketball players, potential first round Major League Baseball selections, outstanding wrestlers, golfers and even an extraordinary female bowler who will one day spend time between the alleys on television, I suspect.

And filling the South Point Showroom in the seats behind these incredible young athletes were parents, coaches and school administration officials and friends —all part of what it takes to nurture and support these and other students who desire to excel.

I did say this was Tuesday night.

Hanging heavy over the entire event was the horrific news from Uvalde, Texas, earlier in the day about the slaughter of 19 school children and two teachers — yet another mass shooting in America by a troubled person with an assault weapon, loaded with ammo and plenty of time to do his worst.

Those 19 elementary school children — kids who never had a chance despite laws in Texas designed to counsel the mentally ill and arm teachers as a first line of defense — will never get the chance to be standouts. They will never have the opportunity to pick a sport about which they are passionate, play it at the highest levels and earn their community’s respect for their achievements in high school and beyond.

That’s because those kids will never make it out of Robb Elementary School, they will never reach their next birthday and they will never go home to parents and family who loved them — parents who dropped them off at school Tuesday morning and, today, are making arrangements for their funerals.

Of course, this sick feeling most Americans have in their stomachs is not new. We got it after Columbine in 1999. It came back again in Sandy Hook in 2012, Orlando in 2016, Pittsburgh in 2018, Buffalo earlier this month and, of course, Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017.

And there have been so many more mass shootings in the past couple of decades where assault weapons, large capacity ammo clips, illegally obtained weapons and, yes, legally obtained but improperly protected weapons in the hands of the unstable took the lives of innocents and shattered families across this country.

The only thing that stands out about all those murders is the refusal of this country’s leaders to do anything to stop the carnage.

Not every leader, of course, just those in the pockets of the gun lobby and a small, very small, minority of Americans who don’t believe that guns kill people and who also believe that their guns are all that’s standing between them and tyranny. Hogwash, of course.

Most of the political leaders who are standing in the way of doing something, anything, to stop the carnage are Republicans. Don’t ask me why (money) because the GOP used to stand for law and order, and currently they stand for anything the National Rifle Association dictates.

And those Republicans are aided and abetted by voters who refuse to hold these do-nothings accountable. In fact, it seems like some voters don’t want anything done to stop the killing of innocent babies. What other conclusion can we draw when voters say they want to stop the murders but continue to vote for people who refuse to stop the murders?

Of course, another culprit is the Supreme Court, which handcuffed the states by ruling in the Heller case that individuals had the right to keep and bear arms. To make that finding, the court had to ignore the first 13 of a total of 27 words that comprise the Second Amendment.

This is the same Supreme Court that is set to relegate all women in America to second-class citizenship status— negating over 50 years of advances in equality between the sexes. If the justices can remove the rights of women in society for political purposes, I suppose there is still hope that one day the high court will learn how to read all the words in the Bill of Rights and change its mind for a good, nonpolitical reason — saving lives of innocent Americans.

Until then, however, if we want children to go to school and come home safely (it shouldn’t be a big ask in the United States of America ) the Congress of the United States has to act.

And if we the people don’t demand that of our elected representatives, then we must count ourselves among those who don’t mind the carnage and don’t mind seeing those small, lifeless bodies strewn across the playgrounds and classrooms of our schools.

We must no longer allow those who have a chance to stand out in their lives be cut down before they ever get that opportunity.

It is way past time to stand up for sanity and stand up for the lives of the young people who are already here.

Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun