Neil Heslin, the father of a 6-year-old boy who was slain in the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, stoically faced down pro-gun activists last night.More than 1,000 people attended a hearing before the Gun Violence Prevention Working Group at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford on Monday to share their views on gun control, USA Today reported. Among them was Heslin, who held a large framed picture of himself and his son Jesse as he urged officials to consider strengthening gun laws in Connecticut. But as he gave his emotional testimony, pleading with lawmakers to improve mental health options and to ban assault weapons like the one Adam Lanza used to murder his child and 25 other people, his speech was interrupted by dozens of audience members, The Connecticut Post reported…. “I still can’t see why any civilian, anybody in this room in fact, needs weapons of that sort. You’re not going to use them for hunting, even for home protection,” Heslin said. Pro-gun activists responded by calling out: “Second Amendment!”
There are few things more despicable than being so devoted to your pet agenda that you’d trample on the pain of a grieving father who’s lost his son. That gun nuts would stoop to heckling a father whose son died in the Sandy Hook massacre is a brand of sick and reprehensible that I can’t even begin to fathom. There’s a time and a place to hold fast to your beliefs…and I gotta tell ya, heckling a grieving father ain’t either.
How can anyone expect to convince people of the righteousness of their cause when they willingly debase themselves in the manner that the gun nuts who heckled Neil Heslin did? All Heslin wanted to do was to honor the memory of his son, Jesse. No matter what side of the gun debate you come down on, respecting the pain and anguish of someone who’s lost a son should be a given It shouldn’t be something that gun nuts need to be reminded of.
That the gun nuts are so inflexibly devoted to their ignorant and incorrect interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is silly. That they’d heckle a grieving father for having the audacity to speak against their position is monstrous. It’s no wonder that these trolls are so frequently and roundly ridiculed as a cabal of inflexible, morally vacant RWNJs. There’s simply no way to take these folks seriously, not when they can’t even behave in public and display a modicum of compassion. They may not care about Neil Heslin. They may not acknowledge or be moved by the significance of his loss or the pain he lives with. They may see their slavish devotion to their absolutist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as superior to any and all other considerations. In doing so, they reveal themselves to be classless monsters who care for nothing save their pet agenda.
One can only hope that there will be a very special place in Hell for these knuckle dragging troglodytes. Anyone who would heckle a grieving father for having the temerity to openly disagree with their cherished beliefs demonstrates themselves to be as ignorant and heartless as they are clueless and inhuman. They deserve far worse than anything I could dream up, but I suppose we’ll have to take what we can get.
