The issue is not, as you attempt to frame it, whether we should demand an explanation or not.
The issue is whether signing a petition is of any value or not.
The “87 years of experience” seems to think that it is a waste of time. If so, the effort being put into the petition would be better spent finding a way to actually make the point you are trying to make.
The worst part of the petition is that it is calling for something that nobody here actually supports. I personally detest arguments that push for a negative in the vain hope that the other side will be persuaded by the idiocy.
Why not put up a petition that calls for all children to receive the same protection as the President’s children. It would still be useless, but at least it would be stating what you actually WANT.
Anyway, as a practical matter, Sidwell Friends should absolutely have more guards than a normal school. Every kid in Sidwell Friends is at increased risk of harm because there are high-value targets attending the school.
The rest of the schools in the country are about the safest place kids can be, on average. While we are confronted with the horror of the occasional mass murder, they are extremely rare, and many more kids are dying for many other reasons, and even being murdered in other locations.
Or to put it another way: if we were going to spend one billion dollars to make kids safer, there are a half-dozen things we could spend the money on that would make a MUCH BIGGER impact than putting armed guards in every school.
So, in summary, this freeper is saying: First, Obama will do nothing he promised; Second, the petition is a waste of time and effort; Third, the petition calls for the OPPOSITE of what you really want, which is silly; Fourth, there is good reason for the President’s kid’s school to be better protected than the average school; and Fifth, schools are already safe enough that we really shouldn’t be making them a high priority.
If you want to do something, do it cheap — let teachers and administrators have guns in all schools, and let the NRA provide training programs because that doesn’t cost government anything.
The issue is the Second Amendment. The left uses every avenue of approach to destroy our right to bear arms that occurs to them. I see this petition as an avenue of resistance to the efforts of the left. If you don't think that leftist quote 'never let a good crisis go to waste when it's an opportunity to do things you had never considered or you didn't think were possible' can't work for our side you are expressing a continued willingness to maintain the republican leadership reactive strategy which as far as I can tell is helping to bury our side.
The point being made by the person who started this petition, as I read it, is Gun Free Zones are a design of the left that the leftist elite does not believe is applicable to themselves.
Americans are having the fallacy that Gun Free Zones will provide safety for all pounded into our consciousness.
That is an attack on the Constitution. Most people when attacked, including myself, don't respond by first consulting the Marquess of Queensbury rules. A fight for life means anything in the arena of contention can be used in the struggle for survival. Including petitioning those who are entrusted with defending our Constitution.
You write The worst part of the petition is that it is calling for something that nobody here actually supports. I ask you to clarify that. What is it you support? Class distinction? Some animals are more valuable than others? Your following observation, Anyway, as a practical matter, Sidwell Friends should absolutely have more guards than a normal school. Every kid in Sidwell Friends is at increased risk of harm because there are high-value targets attending the school. seems to suggest that's what you believe.
That you appear to accept the occasional mass shooting in schools that "are about the safest place kids can be, on average" probably wouldn't be a comfort to parents of any future children who may be killed or maimed in a Gun Free Zone. I have news for you. Even without the occasional drug addled shooter, schools are no way the safest place kids can be for many reasons. Keeping them in government mandated Gun Free Zones, which the author of the petition is saying, for those of you in Dearborn, does not make them safer. That those who are behind that mandate can remove themselves from the rules is unAmerican
In your summary you project that Obama will do nothing. That is not the point. Getting Americans to do something is what I celebrate. The chain of fear that inhibits any American from speaking out may be cloaked in your argument that it's a waste of time but it's still a chain of fear of some kind of reprisal by the government. When you write on Free Republic that this kind of action is a waste of time you are discouraging people to voice their discontent. That too is unAmerican. Why would you want to dissuade people from adding their voice to an increasing number of people who do not agree with you that it is a waste of time?
Again, I ask you for a clarification on a point. The third item in your conclusion, the petition calls for the OPPOSITE of what you really want, which is silly. If you believe the petition should be abandoned is it because it is actually calling for the elite to live by the same rules they have US living by? What is so silly about that?
I think arming teachers is the most sensible route to take. The leftist elite will never let that happen without a fight. I see this petition as an opening jab in that fight. Are opening jabs a waste of time for a fighter?