In the Washington Post, Lateshia Beachum reports a terrible story from Tennessee:
Before winter break, 12-year-old Artemis Rayford wrote a letter to tell Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee that he opposed a new law reducing restrictions on guns. Before the end of that break, the sixth-grader would be shot and killed by one.
In his letter, Artemis told Lee (R) that his school’s anti-violence initiative with the Memphis Police Department had been discussing a law that went into effect in July, allowing people 21 and older, and military service members 18 and up, to carry a weapon without any training or permit.
He introduced himself as a student at Sherwood Middle School before writing his thoughts about the legislation.
“It is my opinion that this new law will be bad and people will be murdered,” Artemis’s letter said.
Beachum’s takeaway:
Artemis wouldn’t be around to find out what Lee thought of his letter.
What happened to Artemis Rayford is appalling. And so, I’m afraid, is how Lateshia Beachum has chosen to write about it. Beachum’s clear insinuation here is that Artemis Rayford wrote to the governor to decry the very change to Tennessee’s gun laws that would eventually led to his death. But this isn’t true. On the contrary: It is a cowardly and propagandistic non sequitur, for which Beachum should be ashamed.
The law to which Rayford had objected in his letter related to the specific manner in which eligible, law-abiding citizens are permitted to carry concealed firearms in Tennessee. Prior to this change, residents of Tennessee were obliged to obtain a permit before they could carry a concealed gun. After the change was made, those residents joined the residents of around 20 other states in being allowed to carry weapons without the explicit permission of the state (providing, of course, that they met certain statutory terms). Whatever one thinks of that alteration, it had nothing whatsoever to do with Rayford’s death. As the Post makes clear, Rayford was not shot in a concealed carry accident, or by an untrained concealed-carrier who lost his temper, or as the result of the police being unsure who was allowed to carry and who was not. He was “shot and killed by a stray bullet” while he was inside his home, by a figure who has not yet been identified, let alone caught. There is a good reason that Beachum at no point attempts to link the new law to Rayford’s death, and that good reason is that the two incidents are wholly unrelated, and she knows it.
There is only one circumstance in which the connection that is drawn in this story might make sense, and that would be if we were talking about the confiscation of firearms, or the total abolition of concealed carry. Had Artemis Rayford written a letter to the governor arguing that Americans should not be permitted to own or carry guns, there would, indeed, be a link between his view and his death. But, however much Beachum might like him to have, he did not. And unless we are to assume that any argument in favor of stricter gun laws is a mere smokescreen for prohibition, this has to matter a great deal. There exist honorable arguments for and against the adopt of permitless carry, but the tragedy of Artemis Rayford represents neither, and no gesturing, hinting, conflating, or rank intimation can change that fact.