Smoke & Mirrors

Chelsea King was a well rounded17-year old High School student in San Diego, California. Little did she know that a jog in a local park would end in her death. Amber DuBois was a 14-year old FFA (Future Farmers of America) member on her way to purchase a new lamb. She didn’t know that February 13, 2009 would be the day she was killed. The common denominator between Chelsea and Amber is their confessed rapist and killer John Gardner.

This wasn’t Gardner’s first offense. In 2000, Gardner plead guilty to punching a young girl in the face and fondling her. He served 5 years of a 6-year sentence and was released on parole in 2005. Gardner was on parole until 2008, but during that time violated his parole multiple times. Those violations included living too close to a school, suspected marijuana possession, and numerous failures to charge his ankle tracking devise. Any of the violations could have easily placed Gardner back in prison, but he was continually passed through the system.

Since pleading guilty to the rape and murder of both Dubois and King, politicians and Chelsea King’s family are sponsoring a new law named ‘Chelsea’s Law’, in hopes to keep this type of tragedy from happening to other young ladies.

My husband and I don’t have children yet, but want to one day. I can’t, and won’t begin to say that I understand what the Dubois and King families feel right now. If my daughter had been raped, beaten, and murdered – I'd probably be on trial for murder for killing the bastard myself.

Still, if my daughter had been murdered I wouldn’t want a bill named after her. Not because I wouldn’t want a strong piece of legislation to protect other young women, or because I wouldn’t want her memory to be alive and her name spoken for years to come. But why have a law enacted in her memory when so many other similar laws are named after their victims? We have Megan’s Law, Dru’s Law, Jessica’s Law, and Polly’s law just to name a few – but the system still failed Amber and Chelsea because these laws are rarely actually enforced.

This problem is prevalent throughout our legal system. Look at Arizona, the state finally had enough and adopted a state law to combat the failure of the Federal Government to enforce legal immigration laws. The federal law is clear on immigration, and many legal immigrants follow the federal immigration policy and come into the United States daily.

But, the Federal Government has turned a blind eye to the border issue with Mexico. Politicians campaign on border security only to do absolutely nothing. Border towns are being destroyed by Drug Cartels, and just recently a Rancher in AZ was gunned down on his own property.

Yet all politicians do is talk about writing a new, tougher piece of legislation. A piece of legislation that strengthens our Country while being fair to illegal immigrants -you know the illegals that have broken federal law. Maybe if I stop paying taxes the federal gov’t will give me a break, too. Oh, wait. I’m actually a legal citizen. Guess I should bend over and take another one for the team.

Let me make a public service announcement and inform the Senators and Congressmen of one thing. The American people lost our faith in you a long time ago. We see through your smoke and mirrors, and know that you are a group of people that create laws for the sake of creation – without any intention of enforcement. Maybe you should look into writing a law that keeps you in office without a vote in November – because your days are numbered and we are cleaning house!