Whenever a high-profile shooting happens in this country, the pig-pile of anti-gun politicization takes about seven seconds to get under way. It’s usually up to full speed long before facts are known or the bodies are cold. Just watch Twitter to get a feel for the nauseating breadth of it all, if you can stomach it.
The shooting this week at STEM School Highlands Ranch outside Denver followed that pattern exactly. But the aftermath, so far, has been very different. Unlike the iPhone-wielding, camera-ready moppets who made up the Parkland Gun Control Funky Bunch, the STEM school students appear to want no part of a national media circus aimed at further demonizing gun ownership.
Last night a vigil was held to remember 18-year-old Kendrick Castillo who’s been credited with rushing one of the shooters (the school had no armed resource officer) and saving lives. He was shot and killed in the effort.
(Kendrick’s father John) Castillo said Kendrick’s friends and the coroner told him that Kendrick and another boy charged one of the shooters once they entered their classroom. The coroner told Castillo his son was a hero, that the gunfire he took would have hurt other people.
But last night’s vigil didn’t go quite the way organizers planned.
The tone changed during the second vigil at Highlands Ranch High School, as STEM School Highlands Ranch students burst into a spontaneous demonstration, protesting politics and the media.
The protest, in the form of a walkout with chants, happened after Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democratic presidential hopeful, and Congressman Jason Crow, spoke to the crowd.
Students, several hundred strong, chanted “Mental health” and complained about the media in derogatory terms.
It’s just so annoying when victims and survivors don’t compliantly fall in line with the preferred narrative.
#NEW on @OANN: Students from the #STEMshooting in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, walk out of a vigil on Wednesday night after saying adults were politicizing their trauma (thread):pic.twitter.com/8YTyPcGsFl
— Alex Salvi (@alexsalvinews) May 9, 2019
Again, from the Denver Post:
The protest derailed the organized vigil, although students eventually went back into the gym and spoke as part of an open-microphone gathering, where they continued to vent. The event ended at about 9 p.m.
Wild scene where STEM school kids walked out of Highlands Ranch, upset that the event was the politicians talking about gun control. So they took over themselves and I have their own vigil. #STEMShooting pic.twitter.com/WlIjwctnFo
— Jenny Brundin (@CPRBrundin) May 9, 2019
The whole display was embarrassing enough that the Brady Campaign for Civilian Disarmament, one of the organizers of last night’s event, was forced to issue an apology.
Gun control org @bradybuzz apologizes for #STEMshooting vigil. Students walked out saying their grief was being politicized. “We are deeply sorry any part of this vigil did not provide the support, caring & sense of community we sought to foster and facilitate” #9NEWS #copolitics pic.twitter.com/NHD6EaekXg
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) May 9, 2019
You can almost hear the hand-wringing on the part of the anti-gun left at the realization that they may not be able to parlay the STEM School shooing into another AstroTurfed anti-gun surge.
