Shooting

This is the thing, and the reason why some of the narrative bothers me. I've argued that there's no indication any of the proposals will solve or even slow down the rate of mass shootings (which actually aren't increasing in number, although the number of people killed has gone up some: https://www.politico.com/magazine/s...hootings-more-deadly-frequent-research-215678 ), and that the assault rifle ban under Clinton was basically an arbitrary hodgepodge of stuff that - if it had any effect at all - would have to have been almost coincidental.

But what if it saves one life? Isn't that worth it?

That's the issue. It's a phrase and a benchmark that are applied selectively, and tend to get used when the other person basically doesn't know if something will help, but they have to do SOMETHING, so they throw stuff against the wall in the HOPE that it will improve things. And they will argue correctly that it probably won't make things WORSE... so what's the problem?

The problem is that the argument can be carried out infinitesimally. Let's say we re-enact the ban. And then the next shooting takes places. And the next. Because we all know it will.

The same voices who shout down any actions that don't involve gun regulations will then point out - correctly - that the law we enacted didn't help. They will then go back into the same cycle, which is that we didn't do ENOUGH and we need MORE laws and MORE controls and we should outlaw MORE types of guns. And once again, the hard things will be ignored, because tackling bureaucratic inefficiency is hard, unglamorous work, and legislators don't get to do what they like best, which is pass laws.

So someone will finally say "you know, the gun nuts always told us that one rifle's just as deadly as the next, and they're right. We need to get rid of all of them. After all, if it saves one life..."
 
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Jonah Goldberg is probably going to have to move or hire armed guards.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...goldberg-column/401160002/?platform=hootsuite

"Think about what you knew and understood at half your current age. Were you smarter then? Wiser? Why assume it works differently for anyone else?

“To all the generations before us,” Cameron Kasky, one of the Parkland survivors recently said on HBO’s Real Time, “we sincerely accept your apology. We appreciate you’re willing to let us rebuild the world that you f___ed up.”

I get the passion. I get the rage and trauma behind it. But this nonsense is as pernicious as it is obnoxious (I’ve apologized for nothing, by the way, have you?). It’s also not true.

Young people today, and particularly young Americans, should be brimming with gratitude for the world they are inheriting. Lest you think this a cranky right wing sentiment, let me align myself with Barack Obama: “If you had to choose a moment in time to be born, any time in human history, and you didn’t know ahead of time what nationality you were or what gender or what your economic status might be, you’d choose today.”

Kasky is standing on a soapbox built with the toil of previous generations and he’s taking a sledgehammer to it — because he doesn’t know better. "
 
Wow.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article204226584.html

Roundly vilified for not entering a Parkland high school during a mass shooting, Broward Deputy Scot Peterson insisted publicly that he believed that gunfire was happening outside on campus — not inside the building.

But internal radio dispatches released by the Broward Sheriff’s Office Thursday show Peterson immediately fixated on Building 12 and even radioed that gunfire was happening “inside.”

And, just as school shooter Nikolas Cruz was fleeing the building after killing 17 people, Peterson warned his fellow officers to stay away — even as wounded students and staff lay inside.

The records appear to support Broward Sheriff Scott Israel’s contention that Peterson, a longtime school resource officer, should have entered Building 12 to engage Cruz and try to prevent deaths. They also appear to show that other deputies may have refrained from rushing into the school at the direction of Peterson and a Parkland captain. The response by the agency has been the subject of national scrutiny, and is currently under review by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...bf9d112159c_story.html?utm_term=.122490b0c217

Seems like a good kid, who's trying to make an actual difference in the debate without calling half the country murderers. So of course the comment section of the Post eviscerates him and calls him a tool of the right. Unlike the CNN/MSNBC group, he doesn't have major funders backing him, he doesn't have a press agent promoting him, and he's apparently actually willing to talk to both sides without screaming and insulting.
 
ProdigalHorn said:
Jonah Goldberg is probably going to have to move or hire armed guards.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...goldberg-column/401160002/?platform=hootsuite

"Think about what you knew and understood at half your current age. Were you smarter then? Wiser? Why assume it works differently for anyone else?

“To all the generations before us,” Cameron Kasky, one of the Parkland survivors recently said on HBO’s Real Time, “we sincerely accept your apology. We appreciate you’re willing to let us rebuild the world that you f___ed up.”

I get the passion. I get the rage and trauma behind it. But this nonsense is as pernicious as it is obnoxious (I’ve apologized for nothing, by the way, have you?). It’s also not true.

Young people today, and particularly young Americans, should be brimming with gratitude for the world they are inheriting. Lest you think this a cranky right wing sentiment, let me align myself with Barack Obama: “If you had to choose a moment in time to be born, any time in human history, and you didn’t know ahead of time what nationality you were or what gender or what your economic status might be, you’d choose today.”

Kasky is standing on a soapbox built with the toil of previous generations and he’s taking a sledgehammer to it — because he doesn’t know better. "
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I've been reading Jonah Goldberg for almost 20 years now, and this might be the best article he has ever written. The glorification and worship of young people that we saw in the wake of this shooting (and other school shootings) is really foolish and dangerous.

Honestly, I don't blame the young people themselves. I think young people naturally gravitate toward arrogance and a belief that they have the answers. Furthermore, they've long had delusions of grandeur. Hell, when I was Kasky's age, I thought I'd one day be Speaker of the House and that I had all the answers too. (Two differences. First, my answers were conservative in nature. Second, I would never have disrespected my elders enough to say I would rebuild a world that they had "****** up," nor did I have the utter lack of perspective that it would have taken to believe that.)

I also think there's a place for youthful passion and motivation. It can certainly help a cause to have it. However, it needs to be tempered by adults with guidance and judgment, because it's passion that they have but wisdom and knowledge that they lack. The failure to do this is what makes this recent spectacle such a dumpster fire.

The job of mature adults is to impart knowledge, wisdom, and sound judgment as well as virtues like honesty and humility without stomping out youthful passion and motivation. The adults are the failures here. Instead of doing what they should have been doing, this twerp's parents and his teachers have probably been telling him he's special and smart his whole life, and obviously, as a public school student, he has been told that his country is racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic, unjust, and every stupid, superficial critique the Left can come up with. What else is he supposed to believe but that (1) his country is ****** up and (2) that he and others like him can "rebuild" it? It's a logical conclusion based on what he has almost surely been told his whole life.

Where were the adults in this dumbass's life? Who was there to teach him some perspective and reality about his country's and his world's history? Who was there to teach him some humility, tact, and judgment? If I had gone on some gun control crusade as a teenager, my father would have challenged my views and made me defend them - even if he agreed with them. I would never have been allowed to talk with Kasky's levels of shallowness and arrogance. Furthermore, if I had gone on television and dropped f-bombs, he would have kicked my *** for using such foul language in a public forum and humiliating my family and would have distanced himself from my remarks if given the opportunity. The fact that this punk felt comfortable talking like this in public reflects terribly on his parents. Shame on them. Worthless parents like them are why the country is going to hell in a hand basket.
 
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Kasky needs to understand that the America he is so appalled by, and feels has been effed up so badly, is only here because 2 generations ago, men his very age were fighting and dying for our freedoms, including the one that allows him to spout his jack assery. Not only America, but the whole world.

Every Sunday in the obits I read about another 1-2 of these men, some who lied about their age in order to join up to fight, and often die, for the world. Then, those who made it through came home and went about their lives.
I feel as if we have let them all down by allowing little twerps like Kasky become "heroic" SJWs.
It sickens me, and makes me ashamed that we are giving kids like this airtime, and some are applauding him.
 
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Hollandtx said:
It sickens me, and makes me ashamed that we are giving kids like this airtime, and some are applauding him.
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Yes, and this is what bugs me about this spectacle. Kids who are foolish enough to take stupid positions and say idiotic things is nothing new. Having a large number of adults who are dumb enough and have poor enough judgment to take them seriously and listen to them is.

Just the other day, Deez, Jr. (who just turned 4) said, "Daddy, I know how to drive the car. Let me drive the car, please." Obviously, I know better than to let him do it. However, if I thought like Kasky's parents do, I would have said, "Deez, Jr., you're so special and smart, and Daddy's a terrible driver who screws up all the time. Here, climb out of your car seat and take the wheel."
 
Actually, it looks like they did say this.





This is like the DNC commending a pro-life group and telling them to join. Complete idiocy and, frankly, deception on their part.
 
^ how dare he!

What I gather about those school administrators is they go with whatever the herd wants to do, but then attempt to maintain a semblance of control.

If you are in control of your school, then you do not allow walkouts. You do not do an asinine “we cannot stop the walkout so if you do not walkout, go to this place” that the school did. Man, a huge portion of school admins have to be some of the most asinine people in america.
 
"Scott Shoemaker says some people thought his son was suspended for walking out, and angry comments accumulated, including some that mistook Scott for the principal. He says he also got a couple death threats and had to consider switching phone numbers."

Basically proof that people turn their brains off when reading Twitter. Most of the people responding apparently didn't even understand what happened. "Wait a second! I need to find out why I'm mad at this guy so I can justify the death threat I just sent to his family."
 
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