Why I voted for Trump: Two Photos
Sarah McKinleyKathryn Steinle
By David Stolinsky. October 22nd, 2018
Article Original
There are many reasons that citizens vote for a candidate. Blue-collar families often vote for the one who will bring back manufacturing jobs. Military families often vote for the one who will leave no man behind. And there are intangible, psychological reasons, which the voters themselves may not be aware of.
For me, public safety is a primary consideration. People have a finite amount of sympathy. I’m sure Mother Teresa had more than I do, but even hers was not unlimited. Wisely, she spent hers for the poor. But many people are unwise. They spend their sympathy on illegal immigrants and criminals, leaving none for law-abiding citizens. This failing is illustrated by these two photos.
Sarah McKinley.
Eighteen-year-old Sarah McKinley was home with her three-month-old son on New Year’s Eve 2013. She lived in the rural community of Blanchard, Oklahoma, and police response times tended to be long. Her husband was not with her; he had died of cancer on Christmas Day.
She saw two men attempting to break in. She recognized one as a man who had been stalking her since her husband’s funeral. Apparently he was looking for drugs in the cancer victim’s home. She gave the baby his bottle, then retrieved a shotgun and a handgun and barricaded the door. She phoned 911 and asked what to do. She was told she could not shoot unless they came through the door. But the 911 dispatcher, who was a woman, added, “You do what you have to do to protect your baby.”
It takes only seconds to call the police. Waiting for them to arrive could take the rest of your life. – Anon.
When seconds count, the police are just minutes away. – Clint Smith, firearms instructor
Sarah was on the phone with 911 for 21 minutes, and the police still had not arrived when the men broke down the door. The first man, the stalker, came at her with a 12-inch hunting knife. She fired the shotgun, killing the man. His companion fled, quite possibly breaking the Olympic 100-meter record. He later turned himself in to police.
Later Sarah explained:
I knew that I was going to have to choose him or my son, and it wasn’t going to be my son, so I did what I had to do. There’s nothing more dangerous than a mother with a child.
If we truly want to “save just one life,” we will remember Sarah McKinley and all those like her. We will read the work of Dr. John Lott, especially “More Guns, Less Crime,” which shows that violent crime decreases when more law-abiding citizens are armed, after background checks and suitable training. We will read the work of Dr. Gary Kleck, especially “Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America,” which shows that guns are used more often to defend against violent crime than to commit it.
It is bizarre that “progressives” who claim to fear the imposition of a Nazi regime, by Trump or others, are the same people who work to disarm the citizens. They seem utterly unaware of the massive contradiction.
If we truly want to “save just one life,” we would be guided by logic instead of emotions. We would not vote for a candidate like Hillary Clinton, who wants to eviscerate the Second Amendment. We would vote for a candidate like Donald Trump, who could afford all the bodyguards he wanted, but who went to the trouble of obtaining his own carry permit. And we did.
Kathryn Steinle.
Like many liberal cities, San Francisco declared itself a “sanctuary city,” so that illegal immigrants would be reported to Immigration only if they commit violent felonies. The supremacy of federal law is a concept that seems to have eluded San Francisco officials. In fact, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants have been released from custody in California without immigration officials being notified. In fact, about 39% of the federal prison population is composed of illegal aliens, of whom over 25,000 were arrested for homicide.
How well the “sanctuary city” program works was illustrated with striking clarity. José Inés García Zárate, age 45, is an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times. If you are deported and return, you have committed a felony, so García was guilty of four felonies before he even got started.
Not satisfied, he then accumulated at least four arrests on drug charges in three states. García Zárate stated that he came to San Francisco because he knew it was a sanctuary city, and he would not be deported again. He was correct. He was arrested again (a fifth time) on drug charges, and Immigration put a hold on him, so he could be deported again when he was released from jail.
But San Francisco authorities followed their policy and refused to honor the hold, because García Zárate had not committed a violent felony. He was released ? and obligingly committed a violent felony. He shot 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle, who died in her father’s arms at a tourist attraction on Pier 14. She worked for a medical technology company. Eventually, the San Francisco jury acquitted him of murder or manslaughter, but found him guilty only of illegal weapons possession. Of course, García Zárate will not receive the death penalty, because California no longer has one.
Correction: California no longer has a death penalty for people like García Zárate, but it does have one for people like Kate Steinle.
García Zárate was arrested under the name Francisco López Sánchez, illustrating that even a multiple felon was not correctly identified by police for several days. We not only don’t know who is coming across our border – we don’t even know who is already here.
Kate’s last words were, “Dad, help me, help me.” But her dad couldn’t help her. It was up to us to help her by keeping the streets as safe as possible. We didn’t. We used up all our sympathy on those who don’t deserve it, leaving none for those who do deserve it. We made a “sanctuary city” that was safe for José Inés García Zárate, but very unsafe for Kathryn Michelle Steinle.
Summing up.
In the case of gun control, excessive regulations are more likely to cost lives than to save them. If you doubt this, just ask Sarah McKinley. How else did you expect the young mother to defend herself and her baby against two intruders armed with a large knife? What did you expect her to do when the police had not yet arrived after 21 minutes? If she didn’t have that shotgun, she would probably be dead, as would her baby – if he were lucky.
Here, gun-control activists with their “If it will save just one life” actually would have cost two lives. Yet somehow, people like Sarah McKinley just don’t register on the “progressive” radar. People like Sarah McKinley and her baby son are dumped into Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables.” And they are included in Barack Obama’s “bitter clingers” who want to hold onto their religion and guns.
After all, how can we expect the self-anointed “elite,” the graduates of prestigious Ivy League universities, to concern themselves with ignorant rednecks? They are much too elevated for such mundane matters. When they say “social justice,” they mean big government controlling virtually every aspect of daily life. But their version of “social justice” somehow fails to include the very lives of Sarah McKinley and her child.
When it comes to illegal immigration, as well as to other policies “progressives” favor, the proponents never seem to remember their beloved mantra of “save just one life.” If our border were more secure, and if our immigration laws were more conscientiously enforced, and – most of all – if San Francisco hadn’t declared itself a “sanctuary city” – then Kathryn Steinle would still be living her life, working at the medical technology company, interacting with her close-knit family, and charming others with her infectious smile.
If Hillary Clinton’s anti-gun agenda had been enacted, Sarah McKinley and her baby would probably be dead. But if Donald Trump’s border-control agenda had been enacted, Kate Steinle would probably be alive. It’s that simple.
Others undoubtedly have their own reasons. But if you want to know why I voted for Donald Trump, just look at these two photos.
David Stolinsky - www.stolinsky.com.
Contact: dstol@prodigy.net.
