Trump Wants To Ban Vaping Because Melania's 'Got A Son'
Trump’s concerned about vaping because of his wife Melania’s son (who is also his son)
There have been more than 300 mass shootings in the United States so far in the 255 days of 2019. 307, to be exact. Nearly 400 people have been killed in mass shootings this year alone, in addition to the other 100 people killed every day by gun violence that doesn’t count as mass shooting. That’s in just 2019. In the last decade alone, nearly half a million people have lost their lives because of guns.
But Donald Trump wants an e-cigarette ban because his wife has a son (who is… also his son?) and this whole thing is just a damn mess.
Trump called for a meeting with reporters in the Oval Office today, where he announced that after five people have died (yes, five, otherwise known as just over 10 percent of the number of people who were shot in the worst mass shooting so far this year) due to a lung disease that’s been connected to e-cigarette use, he wants to completely ban flavored vapes. He also seems to think that flavored e-cigarette use is absolutely rampant among young kids, and actually said kids are “coming home and they’re saying, ‘mom, I want to vape!'”
What’s rampant among kids is anxiety that they’ll be killed in a school shooting.
Trump went on to say he’s tackling this issue at the behest of First Lady Melania, because “she’s got a son.” Um, that would be Trump’s son, Barron. Apparently the First Lady feels very strongly about this issue because of her son, something that doesn’t appear to concern Trump all that much despite the fact that her son is also his son.
Look, e-cigarettes are bad for your health and the fact that they’re flavored makes them disturbingly appealing to young people. Kids are definitely vaping, and that’s something we should all be concerned about from a public health standpoint. Banning e-cigarette sales and use is not a bad thing, and no one wants to see kids becoming ill or dying because of vaping. But this whole situation is weird, from Trump apparently not wanting to admit (or forgetting?) that Barron is his son, to the fact that five deaths related to e-cigarettes resulted in this kind of drastic action, while people are begging for legislation that will protect them from gun violence only to have their pleas fall on deaf ears.
Ban the e-cigarettes. That’s fine. But this administration can’t pretend the ban is about protecting kids when they’re part of a political party that is perfectly content to watch kids get killed every day because they think that gun rights are more important than children’s lives. Until this administration acts on gun violence, don’t be fooled into thinking it gives one single shit about kids.
