Tags
Andy Ngo, Anti-Christian violence, antifa, AR-15, assault weapons, Covenant Elementary, drag shows, FBI, Kel Tec, Merrick Garland, misgendering, Sean Davis, The Constitution, Trans Day of Vengeance, trans genocide, trans violence, twitter, Walter Hudson
When writing about such attacks, it’s wise to avoid hubris. I don’t have the police reports. Body camera footage only tells part of the story, and that subject to interpretation. There is much I don’t know, much no one can know, particularly if our fundamentally untrustworthy media finds its cherished narratives thrown sideways by reality, as Ben Shapiro notes:
The legacy media have a preset narrative machine when it comes to mass shootings. That narrative machine takes into account the identities of the shooter and the victims, and then churns out an explanation for the shooting. White shooter, black victims: systemic racism. Black shooter, white victims: alienation caused by systemic racism. Muslim shooter, gay victims: Christian homophobia.
On Monday, a self-identified 28-year-old trans man shot up a Christian school in Nashville, killing three children and three adults. The shooter left a manifesto, which police said reeked of ‘resentment.’ And so this week, we are learning what pops up in the narrative machine when the inputs are ‘trans man’ and ‘Christian schoolchildren.’
And here’s what pops up: America is systemically cruel to trans people, who apparently cannot be blamed for losing control and targeting small children at Christian schools. A hate crime by a trans-identifying person against a religious group is immediately transmuted into a generalized societal crime against the mass shooter herself. Thus, NBC contributor Benjamin Ryan tweeted, ‘NBC has ID’d the Nashville school shooter… Nashville is home to the Daily Wire, a hub of anti-trans activity by @MattWalshBlog, @BenShapiro and @MichaelJKnowles.’ Newsweek tweeted a story titled, ‘Tennessee Republicans’ ban on drag shows criticized after mass shooting.’ ABC News correspondent Terry Moran stated that the shooter ‘identified herself as a transgender person. The State of Tennessee earlier this month passed and the governor signed a bill that banned transgender medical care for minors…’
In the perverse world of Leftist victimology, this makes sense: If you are a member of a supposedly victimized group, you cannot be the victimizer; there must be another victimizer who has victimized you, turning you back into a victim.
Indeed, but before we proceed, let’s be certain of this: in a constitutional republic, the Constitution–particularly express, unalienable rights–takes some things off the table. Banning the most popular semiautomatic rifle in America, banning an entire class of common, legal firearms, absent amending the Constitution, is beyond “debate” or national “conversation. This is only one reason D/S/Cs want to pack the Supreme Court: to get what they want by ignoring the Constitution. It also seems Elon Musk hasn’t fired quite enough Twitter censors:
Federalist CEO Sean Davis was locked out of his Twitter account Tuesday night for factually reporting on the ‘Trans Day Of Vengeance’ following the deaths of three children and three staff members at a Christian school in Tennessee at the hands of a transgender shooter.
‘The cold-blooded mass murder at a Christian school in Nashville by an apparent transgender person came just days before a planned ‘Trans Day Of Vengeance’ organized by the Trans Radical Activist Network,’ wrote Davis.
It’s policy at SMM not to name—dead or otherwise—mass killers. I also will not assist the mentally ill in their delusions. The killer was a 28-year-old woman, according to media accounts, mentally ill and under psychological care, in part for pretending to be male. This is always a good question:
And therein, gentle readers, lies the media’s cognitive dissonance. Trans this or that are holy in the D/S/C church. They are at once the most oppressed, helpless, vulnerable beings on the planet, and simultaneously saints and martyrs, depending on transitory narrative needs. They are oppressed because Normal Americans refuse to grant them sainthood, refuse to call them normal, or even sane, refuse to accede to their demands, and refuse to praise their self-imagined intellectual and moral superiority. So when one of these objects of veneration invades a Christian elementary school and murders three 9-year-olds, and three adults, the dogma of the D/S/C church is in danger, particularly when that dogma is rife with lies and calls to violence:
The primary Day of Vengeance event is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Saturday at the Supreme Court in D.C., with additional events planned for March 31. LGBTQ activists specifically targeted Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was previously the target of an assassination attempt by a far-left activist last year.
The group purports to seek revenge for what they term ‘trans genocide,’ a conspiracy theory that claims that transgender people are systemically targeted with violence. However, an examination of FBI statistics by the Daily Wire shows no proof to corroborate this claim. In 2021, only two of the 271 recorded hate crimes against transgender individuals resulted in murder. These figures are substantially lower than those of other groups and insufficient to substantiate allegations of ‘trans genocide.’
Seldom do we see such deflection of blame and justification of murder.
On Tucker Carlson Tonight on 03-28-23, Journalist Andy Ngo noted a substantial number—around 25% of violent Antifa thugs arrested –but never prosecuted, of course—identified as—surprise–trans. And where, you might reasonably ask, is the FBI, those dogged pursuers of domestic terrorists like parents upset about the political and sexual indoctrination of children in the public schools? They’re not in Nashville:
The FBI is not treating the Monday shooting in Nashville that killed six, including three small children, as an act of domestic terrorism, The Daily Wire has learned.
To be fairer to the DOJ/FBI than they likely deserve, murder is usually a local crime, not federal jurisdiction, which doesn’t stop them when the narrative demands suppression of evil Normal Americans. Testifying before Congress, Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to say the FBI would investigate the attack against a Christian school as a hate crime. That designation is surely much-abused, and when an attacker is dead and likely had no accomplices, essentially moot, but it is ubiquitous when the government’s ideological enemies are in their sights.
Sidebar: Every August, I update the School Attacks series, which reveals the facts and solutions to school attacks. To find the most recent 9-part series, enter “school attacks 2022” in the SMM home page search bar. Nearly all of the issues stemming from the Nashville attack are therein addressed. I say “nearly all” because the 2022 series doesn’t explore the growing threat of trans, anti-Christian violence. The 2023 update will, and in a sense, begins here.
Police body camera Footage: You can access it here—You Tube; who knows how long it will remain available?–and here (Powerline, so it will stay available).
In this article, gentle readers, I’m not going to try to do in-depth analysis, but provide primarily initial impressions, and facts, insofar as they’re known at the moment. What is generally known, and is likely accurate, is a 28-year-old woman pretending to be a man shot her way into the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, 2023. She was armed with a pistol caliber carbine—more about this shortly—what appears to have been an AR-pattern pistol, and a semiautomatic handgun. She killed three nine-year-old students, a janitor, the school’s principal and a teacher. In the process of firing through a second story window at arriving police officers, she was killed by Nashville officers who promptly assaulted the building. According to Nashville’s Police Chief, the killer chose this school, rejecting another, because that school had “too much security,” while Covenant had no school resource officer, and no other armed security. The killer also apparently purposely chose to attack Christians in general, and this school in particular:
(Via NBC) – A sense of ‘resentment’ might have played a role in a 28-year-old’s deadly attack on the private Christian school they once attended, Nashville police said Monday.
The shooter, Nashville resident Audrey Hale, had no previous criminal record before opening fire at The Covenant School, killing three children and three adults, authorities said.
‘There’s some belief that there was some resentment for having to go to that school,’ Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake told Lester Holt of NBC News.
Hale had carefully planned the attack with detailed maps and surveillance, police said.
The killer also left a “manifesto,” which the police have acknowledged. Do not expect it to be released anytime soon, if at all. It surely will portray the “trans community” in an accurate, negative light. The FBI, which is “assisting” Nashville police, will see to that.
Useful Links:
Brietbart explains how anti-liberty/gun cracktivist Shannon Watts was attacking lawful gun owners before anything was known about the attack.
PJ Media speaks to the martyrdom of the killer.
Heaven forbid anyone “misgender” a mass murderer. Why, that’s even worse–much worse–than murder.
Don Surber speaks to the media’s manipulation of the trans narrative.
Hot Air speaks about the stirring up of trans violence.
Time Frame: In any crime, and particularly this type of crime, understanding pretty much everything depends on a precise time line. If authorities provide one, it’s a sign they’re being transparent and telling the truth. It’s also a sign of their competence. If they don’t, it’s a virtual certainty they’re hiding things and engaging in politics. For the moment, we have only a tentative time line via Fox News.
0954: The killer drives through the parking lot and parks. Her manifesto was later found in her vehicle.
1010: The killer shattered side doors with several rounds, taking only a few seconds. We don’t know which weapon was used. The killer entered and began her rampage.
1021: Officer Rex Englebert’s body camera shows him arriving, taking an AR-pattern rifle out of a case in the back of his vehicle, briefly speaking to a school employee, and stopping at a door. Someone opens the door with a key, and about four officers enter and begin clearing first floor classrooms.
1024: Gunfire can be heard, and the officers rush up a stairwell to the second floor and down a hallway. At about 1024, Englebert and another officer spot the killer and fire, immediately dropping her.
Initial Impressions:
*The officers that took down the killer did what they were supposed to do. They immediately entered, hunted down and neutralized the killer. What the body camera footage makes obvious—all of this is covered in the School Attacks series—is how daunting the task is for responding officers, who don’t know the building layout, don’t know where the killer–or killers–is, don’t know how they’re armed, and have to be very careful about every bullet they fire, which killers don’t.
*Much has been made of a 15-minute response time, 15 minutes from the 9-11 call until the killer was stopped. What we don’t know is how long it took from the beginning of the attack until a call was made to 911, nor do we know how long it took the dispatcher to assimilate the information and send the call via radio or computer to officers. We don’t know how long it took officers to arrive at the school after they were made aware of the attack.
*Waiting for the police to arrive ensures some children and teachers will die and others will be wounded. The numbers depend upon the mercy of lunatics, or on their poor marksmanship.
*The police have no legal obligation to protect any individual, and can’t be successfully sued for failing to protect anyone.
*Despite the school being locked, the killer was able, just as the Newtown Killer was, to shoot their way through glass doors/panes within seconds. Even a hammer or crowbar would have been successful, though arguably a bit slower. All that’s really necessary is breaking enough glass to reach in to push a panic bar.
*Just as at Newtown, armed staff could have repelled or killed the attacker when she was most vulnerable; when entering the shattered doors. Staff know the building and have a significant advantage over outsiders.
*The resolution of this attack was unusual. With few historic exceptions, the police have had no role in ending such attacks, the usual end being the killer’s suicide before police find them.
*Female school attackers are unusual, though every effort will be made to avoid admitting the killer was female.
*As is common in school attacks, the killer obtained her firearms legally, and no known anti-liberty/gun proposal would have made the slightest difference.
*What is not at all unusual is the killer chose a known gun-free zone with no armed security to attack.
*Video systems, unless actively monitored and absolutely comprehensive, provide no deterrence, and do not save lives. They merely provide information after the fact, and do nothing at all to assist in the prosecution of dead killers.
So, drag shows and genital mutilation prevent school attacks statewide?
Final Thoughts: As I’ve so often written, and not just in the “School Attacks” series, security measures such as locked doors, run and hide drills and video cameras, provide little or no deterrence, and only a “feel safe” level of faux-security. They are not useless, but are limited in effect, and cannot stop armed killers. The only policy that can not only deter attacks, but can potentially stop them before anyone is injured or killed is armed, willing school staff and teachers, able to stop an attack when and where it occurs. Nothing else is as effective, yet nothing is so resisted, not only by educators, but by anti-liberty/gun cracktivists, who are determined to ignore every factor of school attacks in favor of disarming those who will never harm anyone.
Consider these responses to the murders:
No one fears trans. Insane murderers, yes.
Stupid, and evil.
As expected, the cry for banning “assault weapons” began immediately, even with President Biden, who first yucked it up about chocolate chip ice cream. Video reveals the killer, while carrying slung what appears to be an AR-based pistol, and a handgun, probably of 9mm caliber, primarily, perhaps exclusively, fired what appears to be a KelTec Sub2000 pistol-caliber carbine.
It is not a rifle, but a small, lite weight, semiautomatic carbine firing a pistol cartridge, either 9mm or .40 S&W. In this case, we don’t know which.
In this attack, it appears the media’s favorite avatar of evil, the AR-15, played a role only in being present. At the moment, we have no indication or evidence it was used to kill anyone.
As I’ve so often written, there is no such thing as an “assault weapon,” which is most accurately understood to be any firearm anti-liberty/gun cracktivists want to ban. “Assault rifles” are military shoulder arms, with fully automatic capability, firing cartridges of intermediate power. None of the firearms anti-liberty/gun cracktivists seek to ban are assault rifles. They are merely semiautomatic rifles used for a great many lawful pursuits. Proper terminology matters, particularly to those whose strategy relies on warping language to their advantage and forcing others to use that warped, often false, language.
In the Covenant attack we arguably see the first fruits of an increasingly rage-filled, militant leftism, specifically Trans leftism. As Tucker Carlson has recently reported, NPR, which is stridently anti-liberty/gun, recently aired a report encouraging trans people to arm themselves in response to supposed anti-trans genocide. No such genocide exists, but for people who claim “silence is violence” when Normal Americans decline to praise their delusions, genocide probably lurks around every corner and under every bed.
The D/S/C media propaganda arm is always quick to claim this or that act of violence was directly inspired by Republican-sponsored legislation, comments, or even the existence of Normal Americans opposing D/S/C policies or demands. They will absolutely not ascribe leftist attacks to the same causes, even when the cause/effect relationship is much more obvious and causative.
Berry is the Arizona Governor’s Press Secretary.
More as it develops.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
The Trans Community calling for a day of rage. They better be careful what they wish for.
They want to ban “assault weapons” because they are actually planning to purge white, conservative, Christians from society. It is much easier to round up victims, confine them to concentration camps, then systematically exterminate them if they have been disarmed first.
Common sense might suggest that, but that does not happen to be the case. For instance, the Armenians mistook an early phase of their own genocide as arming them, and so protecting them that way, by training and equipping their young men. But it worked out as conscripting those men and removing them from the scene, and so disarming the rest even more than if that manpower had been left alone. And the French used the same trick to help take over Indochina in the late nineteenth century, only without the genocide part.
P.M. Lawrence — and that (Armenian experience) is precisely why it’s so important that the 2nd Amendment gives Americans *as individuals* the right to keep and bear arms, not just in a formal military framework. (From what I’ve read, the “well-regulated militia” was understood to mean basically all your average Joes had their own firearms, were proficient with them, and were ready and able to muster if some emergency situation threatened.)
For you and your followers, Mike. Interesting stuff.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-damage-to-human-body/?wpisrc=nl_headlines&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F398d5b2%2F64240c46f19a510b0429de48%2F631f2a2765077e6f963e3a91%2F9%2F55%2F64240c46f19a510b0429de48&wp_cu=ae9144d31d42b627792944ed575f0e92%7C39E0EE8680383C57E0530100007F7A5D
And you want Second Amendment protection to own this firearm without restrictions or controls for what reason exactly?
“And you want Second Amendment protection to own this firearm without restrictions or controls for what reason exactly?”
To protect myself from people that wish me harm. I don’t care if you don’t like it, it’s not your choice to make. The Constitution is about rights, not perceived needs.
I’ll ask you a question Doug, but I know you won’t give a straight answer:
Which country would you choose to live in where the only people that owned guns were the government? Hint: Look at recent and past history to see how well that worked out for the citizens.
We have more guns in this country that people, Ken. Has that solved a damn thing? Nope… and the SCOTUS/Heller interpretation regarding the Second has even brought more problems.
Our proliferation of guns without some measure of controls does zero to make America “safer”. It’s the unlimited access to guns, and the unlimited access to specific weapons that need controls.
Yes, let’s take that history lesson for a ride. One example…. the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Recall that one? The enclosed Jews willing to resist held off the Germans for a month using captured and smuggled weapons. They ultimately lost to armor that destroyed the place, and starvation. You want a tank? I’m sure the current SCOTUS will allow you to own one if you just ask.
It really comes down to one very simple premise: The left wants to disarm citizens so that they can impose communism.
Whenever a gun crime occurs the left immediately call for law abiding gun owners to give up their weapons, when in reality their efforts should be targeted in removing guns from criminals and mentally ill people.
That’s not accidental, the real purpose of the left is to have an unarmed and defenseless population by any means necessary. Therefore, I outright reject every single argument that they make.
If you actually believe what you just posted there, Ken.. then your fear, whether imagined or real, is far greater than mine.
“If you actually believe what you just posted there, Ken.. then your fear, whether imagined or real, is far greater than mine.”
It’s not fear, it’s accepting the reality of how bad things have become in recent years. I also don’t think my house will burn down but I still buy home insurance.
If I own a gun it’s no threat to you at all, so why would you want to disarm me and make me defenseless?
I don’t see “gun controls” as being all about “taking your gun away”. I’ll admit that on any given day there are those on the Far Right that want a shooting civil war to fix everything into their definition of what America should be. There are those on the Far Left that want to limit our freedoms for a far more equal and just and safe America.. according to their definition of it, and maybe asserting the use of violence to get it. But it seems to me either extreme is of little threat, as these extremes have been with us in some form all through our history. So I suppose I then ask you the question… what’s allowing you to fear either of those extreme into becoming some reality? Both sides have had control of Congress in past decades… SCOTUS has changed off and on… so where is the actual threat beyond being just political rhetoric?
Hell, there’s more guns than people in this country.. so who is going to “take your guns” when it’s an impractical process to begin with?
I’m just trying to understand your fear here. It seems so unfounded and remote given all else going on in the real world that might demand us to fear a bit. Life seems complex enough without having to dream up fears.
“Point being, we have to start somewhere because if nothing continues to get done because gun owners circle the wagons each and every time there’s random shootings, to “save” the Second… then ultimately gun owners are going to lose the entire enchilada when enough innocent people… children… die. The question then becomes… how many innocent people, and children, need to die before that happens.”
Sure, let’s save the children. 40% of transgender people have seriously considered suicide. Many of them do. Countless more regret their decision and now have a body that doesn’t function normally. Some of them are so unstable that they become domestic terrorists.
How many innocent children also die when violent criminals are released early due to Democrat early release laws?
Your solution is to remove guns from law abiding citizens that kill no one. My solution is to stop performing life altering irreversible surgeries on minors and to leave violent criminals in jail longer.
You said…
“Your solution is to remove guns from law abiding citizens that kill no one. My solution is to stop performing life altering irreversible surgeries on minors and to leave violent criminals in jail longer.”
I don’t recall that being “my” solution. And I do recognize for as often as I’ve included in here my gun-owning status and that politically I am an Independent… few bother to care, and prefer lumping me into the Liberal-Progressive “enemy” given the responses suddenly coming out in here thinking I must be “one of THEM”.
Again, let’s keep in mind that everyone owning a gun is, in fact, a law abiding citizen, until the day they are not anymore. The girl, boy, whatever the damn gender, that shot up the school, was law abiding when she purchased her seven guns legally. Then one day she wasn’t law abiding anymore. So simply declaring oneself law abiding as a measure of legal conformity for eternity, doesn’t really work. We are who we are until we aren’t.
Dear Doug:
I’ll keep in mind you’re a murderer, wife beater and rapist, even though you’re law-abiding for the moment–as far as we know. That sort of reasoning cuts two ways.
You’re presuming, of course, any road I take to become “un-law abiding” involves those particular crimes. Who knows.. I could get indicted for something like business fraud.
Dear Doug:
As I noted in the article, banning and confiscating guns–how else will gun grabbers achieve their goals?–is off the table. In a Constitutional Republic, one doesn’t get to ignore express, unalienable rights. Politically, it’s also off the table. Even when D/S/Cs controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, they didn’t–wouldn’t/couldn’t–do what you want.
Ah, but in “our democracy,” you’d get your way over the bodies of Americans who try to insist on the Constitution and rule of law.
Those on your side engage in “debate” and “conversation” by screaming “shut up you child killers!” Your arguments–actually invective–is drenched in emotion, not logic, not common sense, not law. You regularly tell us war doesn’t solve anything, and civil war would destroy the country. War does indeed solve things, and civil war would be terribly destructive, which I’ve always maintained. Yet you somehow can’t see gun bans and confiscation would not only destroy the Constitution and the rule of law, but would surely provoke the civil war you decry. Why is that?
Go check the FBI statistics, more people are beaten to death by fists and feed than killed by long guns (This includes shot guns) per year. Review a copy of the “Medicological Investigation of Death”. People have been killed via assault with a meat fork. More children die each year from drowning than firearms. Now go read investigations into SSRIs and their links with suicide. Many of these killers, from what I have learned, want someone to kill them but can’t get to suicide, they they fundamentally go suicide by cop. The amount of mental pain and anguish is immense and we as a society are doing little to address this in an effective manor. My opinion is our current treatments for mental illness are equivalent to bleeding the humors with leeches, and are possibly even worse because they actively harm the patient.
Silence is violence, violence to the truth. To think you are misgendered means you have a mental issue, and coddling such people does not help them learn how to deal with it. Instead it allows them to go further down the rabbit hole and become even more unhappy.
So when you move to outlaw cars because they kill 10X more people per year than firearms, and outlaw pools because of all the kids that drown, and fists and feet then we can have a talk. Or, we could actually begin to establish a mental health system that helps people.
Yes, your link shows the damage a bullet does. So what. Is death by drowning, assault, defenestration or fork any better? How do you think your lettuce feels ripped out of the ground?
Dear Sir Doug,
YES, I want my “Second Amendment protection” to own my AR-15 rifle….which is {exactly} used for ranch/farm pests (coyotes mostly) here in TN. The 55gr. cartridge (M193) the AR-15 rifle uses is perfect for 20-35lbs pests. This AR-15 rifle, the most popular rifle in America, is a 20″ Geissele super duty w/ night optics & suppressor and one of the 25+ million AR-15 rifles legally owned & used here in the U.S. NONE of my many civilian firearms have EVER killed or hurt a human and all of them have an ‘exact’ purpose/reason/logic.
I sincerely hope you’re not too displeased when it becomes known which cartridge “she” used to kill six people.
Geez.. a cartridge-size pissing match now? You mean, it’s better for the argument if the child died by a 9mm or 40 cal than a .223? Good Lord.
Sir Doug;
Geez…then why did YOU post “The Blast Effect of the AR-15 rifle”, as most rifle cartridges work THE SAME WAY, if YOU didn’t want “a pissing match” ? Death is death, remember? Violence has been part of our national mythology forever and until we fix our mental-illness issues, nothing will change! Your 1994-2004 “Assault Weapon Ban” did not work & neither will any other ‘feel-good’ laws that EVIL will not obey or follow. As your hypocrisy & enmity is legendary here, true insight into your fraudulent propaganda will be our reward.
Dear Buck Turgidson:
In all my years in police work, I’ve seen pretty much every way the human body can be damaged and destroyed. None are pretty. But focusing only on emotion and revulsion, and ignoring the positive, useful things firearms make possible, which far outweighs the damage done by criminals and the insane, and actually keeps them in check, exposes one’s true agenda, which has nothing to do with safety, and everything to do with repression.
Yeah, yeah.. death is death and you can only die once… and if it’s the other guy (or child) at least it’s not you. But beyond that “logic”.. you are absolutely correct that we need a national mental health program in this country the size of NASA. But here’s the issue with that which makes that idea all the more impactful. While a lot of mental health can be treated, invariably we will end up having to limit by restricting their personal Constitutional freedoms in order to either protect them from themselves or from others. And I don’t mean just restricting them from having access to guns, but from simply driving a car, operating certain machinery, practicing medicine, dentistry… law enforcement.. the list is endless besides just guns. Someone or some entity will have to stand in judgement over other Americans they deem incapable of having complete freedom. Given that, it’s not stretch to presume that if human beings are in charge of that, those with the power will invariably abuse it.. so now we need oversight.
I know, I know.. as long as it’s “the other guy” and not us, we will allow that, right? As long as it’s “my kind” making the judgement calls, that’s ok.. right?
Point being, we have to start somewhere because if nothing continues to get done because gun owners circle the wagons each and every time there’s random shootings, to “save” the Second… then ultimately gun owners are going to lose the entire enchilada when enough innocent people… children… die. The question then becomes… how many innocent people, and children, need to die before that happens.
Douig
About 100,000 Americans die of drug ODs each year, most of them young.
How long should we allow this until we finally get around to “doing something”? We could start by giving long, mandatory prizon terms to anyone caught with any amount of weed.
How many young lives must perish before we GET SERIOUS about drugs?
Dear Rum:
Perhaps closing the borders that allow the cartels and China to poison us might also be helpful?
Actually I agree with you regarding the proliferation of illegal drugs. In fact, we have so many problems across the board in this country… some problems kill people… kill children… kill the innocent. Some problems don’t kill at all, they just cost money, driving the country deeper in debt… cost more to us taxpayers. We’ve got social problems galore… most of those are interest groups and demographics trying to be recognized and get respect…. and trying to find identities. We got problems with other countries. The list of our nation’s problems are immense. Where do YOU want to start to fix them them? Let me guess… start anywhere else but leave my guns alone.
You said….
“Those on your side engage in “debate” and “conversation” by screaming “shut up you child killers!” Your arguments–actually invective–is drenched in emotion, not logic, not common sense, not law.”
I am sure that has been the case. But then again, the gun aficionado response has always been essentially, “Don’t mess with the Second Amendment because that’s the law.” Then you toss in “patriotism”, Founding Fathers quotes, “inalienable” this and that, yada, yada; the gun is the end all that defines Americans.
“You regularly tell us war doesn’t solve anything, and civil war would destroy the country. War does indeed solve things, and civil war would be terribly destructive, which I’ve always maintained. Yet you somehow can’t see gun bans and confiscation would not only destroy the Constitution and the rule of law, but would surely provoke the civil war you decry. Why is that?”
Because guns are not important to all people. Because some folks believe in debate and compromise hammered out on the floors of legislative bodies… rather than finding a “Plan B” in your favorite caliber for those “just in case” government overthrow situations imagined in the mind.
How would a “gun ban”, widely defined as that is (and never would be in application), destroy the Constitution? I can’t even see how a “gun confiscation” is even practical, possible, or remotely probable. I have NO idea where that crap comes from.. but more to the point, why you are believing it?
Owning a gun for home self-defense is one thing. Now it’s turning into out-of-home self defense. But the idea that it’s needed for correcting” government… and actually doing that believing that government will be “corrected”, is pretty far-fetched.
As I’ve often asked those with the constant “grievance politics” lament you reflect… just where has your life been repressed, oppressed, denied, persecuted? You fear everything and anything that doesn’t agree with you… and mark it up to some attack of an obscurely defined assorted array of “enemy” made up of other Americans… and surmise these Americans want to destroy you. Is that the MAGA-betraying, money-whore Tucker talking?
Dear Doug:
I fear nothing, but as Thomas Jefferson said, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. The freedoms we enjoy are rare in human history, and tend not to last long, which is why we all need to be vigilant.
Ignoring any part of the Constitution establishes the precedent of ignoring it all. It’s the wall of liberty, and we dare not allow the removal of a single brick. And of course guns don’t define us, though they do guarantee the individual liberty that does.
As to the “crap,” how, pray tell, would an “assault weapon” ban work without confiscation, or “buy backs?” And from where does the crap come? You can use Google, no? Diane Feinstein, for one, said if she could make Americans turn in all their guns, she’d do it. She’s far from the only one with that goal.
Of course people have said that. I have a “goal” to win the lottery someday. People have also said a good civil war now and then cleanses the soul. Fortunately, there’s never enough of “those people” to define our outcomes because we manage the better angels of our nature. I tend to think “standing guard” over our freedoms is less about an armed citizenry, and more about the will of each American to adopt the timeless motto of the lowly mall guard…. observe and report.. being the eyes and ears, and giving authority to our institutions, through our elected officials, to respond as needed.
Of course you fear something.. you conceal and carry, ostensibly for personal protection or that of loved ones. If you presume to think you are still a cop at heart and still have some duty to protect & serve the public “just in case”.. that’s a far different paradigm that would worry even me.
Ok.. I am done for now. I breathed in a little life for a few rounds of discussion that really did nothing for anyone other than keyboard practice.. and some venting.
So Doug posts a video of what ANY cartridge out there will do, more or less (5.56 actually on the “less” side of virtually all deer rifles in use).
Yawn. What a foolish attempt to sensationalize for the uninformed. Just more fake news, but the LIV will lap it up.
I’ve had this idea for years… remove the impetus for news to censure disturbing photos of death and dying in the news across the scale of human existence for hours between 9pm and midnight. Let freedom ring.
Doug, do you seriously want the government that created the Trail of Tears, incarcerated American citizens of Japanese heritage, experimented on the retarded to have a monopoly on force? The Gov’t won’t give up its guns. Empires are built on force, forcing polities to join them at the point of a spear or the barrel of a gun. This goes from petty drug/warlords in South America all the way to our own US of A (Abraham Lincoln used force to keep the US together creating the Empire of the USA). So force is quite useful and a successful strategy. Talk to a Romanian there for the overthrow of Chowchescu (sp). The army shot into an unarmed crowd of protestors. Won’t happen here? How about Ashli Babbitt.
As to mental health there are people who can not run their own lives. They hurt many people around them including friends and family. What compassionate solution would you recommend? I have direct personal experience of family who siphon off money, time and emotion from all around them and our current health care system just makes the situation worse.
So rather than be rational and apply your “logic” to drugs, pools and cars you would rather deprive law abiding people of a tool used for game management, sport and self-defense. We;re human beings, sometimes you have to pick the least bad solution. Study crime statistics, lower crime is where there is higher gun ownership. Study mental health-we’re institutionally doing it wrong. That is the root cause of this issue-mental health. How, pray tell, would you address that issue?
I am sure if the American weapon of choice for shooters were AK-47’s, old WW2 M-14’s, or a Barrett M82.. we’d be comparing the effects of a body being hit by 7.62 Russian, 30-06, or 50 cal. Pick a gun, pick a caliber. But we are dealing with the AR-15 because civilians are afraid of being out gunned by the military.
And before someone wants to do a “gotcha”, I “gotcha’d” myself.. the M-14 is post WW2.
Xoph… first off, a fair reply, even if a bit flawed historically, given most in here tend to be knee-jerk confrontational. Let me try to respond in kind.
I think you have picked up this entire reply thread somewhere in the middle. If you are at all interested I recommend you read all my responses in here to get the context of where I am coming from, because much of what you are discussing here I’ve covered. Obviously you don’t have to agree with what I’ve said in those replies, but you might have a better picture of where I am coming from.
That being said… I do not one bit side with “surrendering” gun ownership, or tolerating “government confiscation” of guns.. or any of those broadly assigned accusations from Conservatives. I also recognize that gun ownership (if not for recreational/hunting purposes) is entirely about fear… and everyone has their own fear of something. Fear naturally begets more fear, and while fear is natural for humans… we can at least try to moderate it to live better with each other.
Had we created more gun controls as to the kinds of weapons decades ago we’d not be in the current position of being unable to create any controls simply because there are so many of the damn things already in circulation. It would be wonderful if decades ago it would have been illegal for an “assault weapon” to have a magazine capacity greater than ten rounds. IN THE LEAST, a shooter would have to pause to re-load more often, thus allowing potential victims to run, and law enforcement to advance. But we are way past that because high-capacity magazines are everywhere. We are also way past “banning” ownership of types of weapons because of the millions already in circulation… BUT.. we can ban manufacture/purchasing in the future of selected types of firearms… thereby just leaving a limit to what is already in circulation. Will that reduce random shooters? Of course not. But control has to begin somewhere.
But this idea that we need the same kinds of guns that the military has in order to be able to fight the military acting at the behest of a “nasty” government.. is an unrealistic and misguided fear. I mean, on one hand Right Wing Conservatives “love” the Constitution and the Founders who created it, yet they fear a government takeover and need their guns to offset that… yet in our entire 250 year history we’ve never had that even attempted. The closest we’ve come was Jan 6, and that was a one-off semi-disorganized rabble of “weekend insurrectionist” protestors, incited by Trump to disrupt Congress.
But we can apply restrictions to gun ownership for mental health issues, age purchase restrictions… and most certainly we could make mandatory classroom safety and gun range time for ownership.. and even gun registration. But see, somehow registering your firearm gives government some control on knowing who you are and where you live so that the military can hunt you down to take your gun. (Uh huh. I saw “Red Dawn”, too).
I brought this up in an earlier reply… I’m more or less along the lines of those folks who resided in the Warsaw Ghetto in WW2. They held off the German Army for a month simply by grabbing German weaponry off those ones and two’s killed, and using those captured weapons…. state-of-the-art for those days… to fight back. They ultimately lost because German armor blew the place up and starvation took over…. not because they were out-gunned. Speaking of “Red Dawn”, that’s how those kids acted as effective partisans.. they used captured weapons. So.. rather than spend a couple thousand bucks on some commercial-grade semi-auto AR-15 today, better off to wait until a column of military vehicles dispatched by some Left Wing renegade Constitutional-destroying government comes down your street and someone uses Aunt Edna’s old .22 rifle to off a couple soldiers and grab their state-of-the-art cool stuff.
Doug, the point is that your video does nothing more than inflame the passions of anyone who doesn’t have a passing understanding of ballistics and the theory of energy. We know what bullets do and it is exactly what they are designed to do. That some use this as reason to stand agape doesn’t make it any more or less true. Why not post a video of the kinetic effects of the rock that Cain used to murder Abel?
About 20 years ago a local guy murdered his wife and children. The media made a huge deal of the fact he shot his five children (with a gun illegally given him by his father). They were much less strident about him horrifically stabbing his wife.
Was the wife somehow less dead than the children? Where were the calls for knife control? Why did he choose to stab his wife, when she was realistically the only one who could have stopped his rampage at that point in time?
Why are people focussed on the method of violence instead of the violence itself and the causes of it?
I believe the focus has been the common factor in random shootings is often.. quite obviously… use of the same kind of firearm simply because it causes the most damage and chaos in the shortest time, and seems the go-to weapon for the mentally challenged. If I were a parent of some child who was killed by such a person.. no, wait.. let’s play, what if it were YOU as a parent of a child who was killed in this manner as the Covenant shooting… would you go quietly back home after the funeral and sulk about mental illness being the blame or school authorities for not allowing guns in the classroom.. or, more locked doors… or post a cop in the building.. after seeing what a few .223 rounds did to your kid? I own guns.. but I surely do not “caress” the Second like it’s the Holy Grail of freedom, no matter the cost in lives.
You darn right I want to know what set this person off… I’d also want to know why this person chose the guns she purchased.. legally… and I’d want to know how it was possible that someone with her mental challenge was able to purchase a gun to kill my kid in the first place. I’d also want to know how we could keep this from happening to other kids.. and adults going to church, or the mall, so often.
Back before the 70’s and during the Cold War one might have had an interest in gun ownership just in case Facism, Japs, those godless Commies, etc., invaded us. Go figure, gun ownership now has gone totally wild over the single concept that someone who has different politics than you just might take over the country and you will need to kill him. Jeez. More guns than people just to kill fellow Americans because of politics. If you don’t believe that then re-run some Jan 6 footage.. or watch what happens this coming Tuesday in New York.
Two of the guns were pistol caliber, one a pistol and the other a carbine. The third gun was a rifle caliber rifle that was almost certainly chambered in .223 caliber or 5.55mm. In shirt, that AR-15 is a twenty-two caliber rodent rifle. An AR 15 is a joke compared to most common hunting rifles chambered in 30-06 or .300 Winchester Magnum.
Don’t get me started on how a twenty-two caliber AR-15 rodent rifle compares to a 12 gauge shotgun which is seventy-three caliber.
Mass shooters are not picking the AR-15 because it is particularly deadly. Mass shooters select the AR-15 because they crave publicity. Most mass shooters now pick AR-15s because our journalists and politicians will then publicize and exploit their murderous rampage to advance their political agenda.
Um.. you know.. you might have something there. I will bet you that all the shooters are members of a Leftist conspiracy, and that they have sworn a blood-oath pact to sacrifice themselves to make gun owners look bad, and force public opinion against the Second Amendment for the purpose of removing the Second from the Constitution.. following of course, that is gets proposed by two thirds of Congress, or by a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures.. and then at least three quarters of the states’ legislatures voting to ratify it. But that would be easy, right?
I suppose another option, simply to speed things along, the radical Leftists might skip all that and get Antifa to take over the three branches of government by force.
Yeah! That’s the ticket!
Dear Marty:
And the murderers.
Doug, when someone with murder on their mind decides to go after my child, I want someone else to be able to stop them, decisively. I would want to know why I, or someone else, wasn’t allowed the means to defend them.
By coincidence, I ran across this YouTube clip. Priceless, in that it’s so rare for the MSM to report the truth!
Your clip link didn’t make it through, Marty.
Oh.. wait… had to be on Mike’s blog. Got it.
While I am already aware of the definitions since my past affiliation in the military,… let’s nonetheless “toy” with this “assault rifle” definition.
Based in this video clip (which honestly didn’t explain it well at all) and the various definitions found on the Internet… the only difference between the two is that an “assault” rifle has selective fire, typically from semi to full auto (or limited burst). This means that the definition for “assault” rifle is based on function and not appearance. Yet also with firing technique given that a soldier was not limited to pause and aiming each individual shot, but could send many more bullets toward a target holding the weapon at waist height, and advance at the same time.. hence the “assault” part of all this.
That being the case then the only “assault” rifles are those with the military and law enforcement since they are the only entities permitted the use of selective fire weaponry. Going forward, we can then say that “assault” rifles are already banned from civilian use since they are an “automatic fire” weapon… akin to the traditional “machine gun” capability, and subject to current ATF prohibitions for civilian use.
So now we reach the point where average folks are scared and fed up with all the carnage being caused from these weapons that are not truly “assault” by definition, but rather one might call assault “style” given the original military appearance and design for the most part is the same as the civilian semi-auto version… likely originally kept identical for the assembly line process, and most certainly for marketing purposes.
Essentially, both versions of the gun hold true to form in that their military design and operation is to send as much lead toward a target as quickly as possible without the need for frequent reloading. This means the use of detachable magazines that can hold increased bullet capacities.
Still moving forward… the damage caused by these weapons in the hands of mentally challenged shooters is a result of initiating a rate of fire as quickly as the trigger can be pulled. without the need to pause frequently to reload (or to cock a bolt to chamber the next round)… then combining that with a cartridge design meant to give the military an advantage in neutralizing the enemy quickly, and as effectively as possible so as to inflict as much bodily damage as possible. In other words, either design application is meant to kill other human beings.
Admittedly, there are many combat designed weapons that are part of the civilian market, most from past conflicts in 20th century history, and likely many of them as equally effective at killing. What makes the AR15/M16 the issue is that it simply is a popular design, as well as a rugged, lightweight design, suitable for many civilian applications other than killing people. Ex-military has learned the hard way to love this weapon. It’s become one of the more prolific weapon designs in history… similar to the AK47, and hence the weapon of choice also for those mentally challenged shooters wishing to inflict fear into their delivery of chaos and death.
Everyone on this blog knows every bit of this. So my point in regurgitating all this (besides the fact I am killing time on duty) is to illustrate that this big defensive effort to joust at the term “assault” as if that was going to change anything is pretty much semantics to the general public looking to try and control the number of bullets being aimed at their loved ones. So it becomes a battle about magazine capacity… which is the singular attribute for all “assault style” weapons I am aware of. But here’s the rub. Makes sense to want to limit magazine capacities to force a shooter into frequent reloads, thus affording some element of break in the chaos to try an escape, or for law enforcement to advance. But there are already millions of 20 and 30 round magazines (and greater) available.. and there is no way to control their use. No worries.. right?
So stop with the picky semantics already. You know what the public is talking about. No more of this pompous, “You’re stupid if you want to ban assault rifles.” nonsense. If there is a law to come from this the lawyers will assign the proper legal terms, you can be sure of that. No one is going to take your guns.
Dear Doug:
Of course no one is going to take America’s guns. That’s why they’ve been trying to ban, “buy back” and confiscate them for decades.
“Trying”, Mike. That’s why the Constitution works.
That point about using an AR for better media impact is totally right. It is easy to show that if a shooter uses something else, the story will either go on page 4 for a day or so or the media will just lie and call it an AR anyway.
A few years ago, a crazy kid killed 8 or so in a high school where I live with a simple shotgun and an old revolver. Ther story got zero national attention.
Sante Fe Texas High School massacre
Doug
“Word salad, word salad, word salad. No one is going to take your guns.“
LOL
Yeah… sorta the reply I thought would come out. I had a fleeting concern there were too many sentences in a row for most in here.
Dear Doug:
If SMM readers aren’t up to your intellectual standards, you have other options.
Double standard creeping in there, Mike? My “fleeting” was pertaining to holding anyone’s attention beyond the first paragraph before speed-reading starts to obscure what’s being said. You’ve been fair all these years letting me be the lightening rod for those in discontent. Things are about to swing around a bit on the political scene so maybe time to meander on. No exiting cyber-drama here. I’ll watch and read until a button is pressed that makes me give a damn again, I’m sure.
Dear Doug:
There’s no double standard. All are welcome so long as they behave as civilized adults. All also have the liberty to leave at will.
Oh, I read it. The conclusion was inescapable.
How anyone could look at a tragedy like this and think “I wish I didn’t have the right to have a firearm” is beyond me. Some people simply lack the will to take responsibility for themselves. May they find the masters they so deeply desire and their chains rest lightly.
It’s funny though.. it’s always something that gun owners should give up, to make cowards feel better. If we don’t do it willingly, the State should force us to give up our rights for “the greater good”, at the barrel of a gun if necessary… It’s never personal sacrifice or action on the part of those who claim to be outraged by these tragedies.. Must be nice to feel moral and superior without doing anything.