Today’s news
Have you noticed that the news today is almost entirely taken up by the aftermath of the Parkland shooting as it relates to gun control?
That memeorandum page reflects general news coverage, and it’s my impression that this particular mass shooting has engendered more political fallout than most. My theory is that the antigun forces see the Trump presidency as affording them a better opportunity to make their case, but I’m not at all sure that’s correct.
In other news (as you see if you scroll down on the memeorandum page or follow this link), we have the latest in the long-running series of articles about how McMaster’s resignation is imminent. Now, maybe he’ll resign soon and maybe he won’t. But don’t people ever get tired of writing (and of reading) the same-old same-old prediction—one that so far has not come to pass?
There is something about a stopped clock and the time of day. Maybe one of these predictions (McMaster, Tillerson, Sessions, etc.) will be right and then we’ll hear “So-and-so is always good at getting the story”.
They may believe that about the Trump presidency, but it seems to me that the Parkland shooter’s character, history, and the human failures of the existing system (so far as we know them from reports) severely weaken & detract from the anti-gun argument and move a sincere* thinker toward the mental health & secure the schools argument.
* important
Seems to me that Pres. Trump certainly does help the “antigun forces” by doing stuff like this:
Ann,
You may need to broaden your information sources beyond the Bloomberg stuff.
“But don’t people ever get tired of writing (and of reading) the same-old same-old prediction–one that so far has not come to pass?”. No, c.f., Keynesian economists who for nearly ninety years have been predicting that taxing and spending by the central government will create prosperity. Never works but they keep believing in it. Krugman comes to mind.
If handguns are as hopelessly out powered by ar15s that makes having armed guards in schools useless for fighting potential mass shooters with semi auto as liberals claimed, doesn’t that mean all police officers are out powered by most criminals since ar15s can so easily be obtained? If we know that semi automatics is the tool of trade for school shooters, why don’t we just simply place two trained guards with ar15s on every campus?
Ann is reffering to a bho EO that stripped veterans 2nd amendment rights from those who could not cope wtih VA paperwork and needed assistance from a third party to deal with the bureaucracy. Obviously, a vast pool of of terrorists plotting to slaughter children, stomp kittens, and kick puppies.
Not to take the “logic” of progressive/repressive 2nd ammendment foes too seriously, but consider that the off duty capitol police officers that stopped the liberal loon that attempted to murder the Republican congressmen practicing softball were armed with pistols, and the NRA instructor that interrupted the Texas church shooting was armed with an AR15 type rifle. It appears to me that the individuals and actions taken at the time are more important than the specific firearm (if available) that are used. These people didn’t run away, they engaged the threat.
I find it interesting that everybody is hysterical about the AR-15 used in the shooting. If you recall, the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho, used handguns and shot 49 people and 32 died.
“My theory is that the antigun forces see the Trump presidency as affording them a better opportunity to make their case.”
I do agree with that – it seems to me they think there is enough anti-Trump sentiment in the country that they can harness it for their end-goal.
But, I think that if that is what they are thinking then they are victims of their own bubbles – anti-Trump sentiment is only in the media and liberal cesspools.
Us, ordinary folks have seen how Trump has revised the economy and made things better – in a very short period of time – and they (meaning liberals and the MSM) cannot hide that fact as much as they would like to.
Thanks, parker, I stand corrected. I just found a good piece at Vox, of all places, explaining that particular move in detail, and that it was an Obama EO disapproved of even by the ACLU — “Trump was right to lift a rule preventing some people with disabilities from buying guns”
It does seem like there is momentum for more drastic gun control like banning 200 semi-auto rifles (FL Sen. Nelson).
The irony is that this tragedy features incompetence and dysfunction at every level of government. On day one, the Broward sheriff lectured the citizens of his county, “See something, say something.” and “Give us more money.” Now we know his deputy stood outside the building under attack and listened to the gunfire for 4 minutes while doing nothing.
FBI, local PD and sheriffs, school officials, and mental health officials are all implicated in epic fails. But no, it’s the gun’s fault.
The gun control forces did manage to crank it up a notch this time.
It’s not a bad strategy to amp up the moral outrage until things change. That’s essentially how slavery and Jim Crow were ended. In those cases I’d argue it was the right thing to do.
It also worked against the Vietnam War and Iraq War, though I’m ambivalent about those examples.
In any event moral outrage has become a standard liberal template for getting things done but that doesn’t mean that all moral outrages are the same and should be similarly effective.
When I was a still a leftist in the 90s I watched a documentary, “Berkeley in the Sixties.” It was a high to relive the self-righteous opposition to racism and war. I dug it.
But then I thought, what’s the next act? Yeah, women’s liberation and gay liberation are cool, but where do we go from here with that kind of moral certainty?
I couldn’t see anything beyond insisting on utopia where everyone had the same net worth and income, which even as a leftist ex-hippie didn’t make sense to me.
So now the left is trying to crank up the equivalent moral indignation over any American having a firearm anywhere as black lynchings in the KKK South.
Maybe not.
Have I noticed how much mental damage I am taking by paying attention to Leftist propaganda?
No, why would I open the firewall ports just for that…
People also forget or just weren’t told by their official American public indoctrination dogma, that the KKK and Southern eugenic slavery 2.0 was instituted using mass propaganda and totalitarian controls. The same agent provocateur, false flag like, moral outrage, emotion based control method was used on whites, way before they were used on inner city ghetto blacks in the USA.
As for people control, the Deep State needs to get rid of the citizen defenses for a strategic reason. Thus the anti-Trum antics are merely the mirrors and smoke in the magic trick.
parker Says:
February 22nd, 2018 at 6:56 pm
Ann is reffering to a bho EO that stripped veterans 2nd amendment rights from those who could not cope wtih VA paperwork and needed assistance from a third party to deal with the bureaucracy. Obviously, a vast pool of of terrorists plotting to slaughter children, stomp kittens, and kick puppies.
* * *
I was also going to make a really snarky comment, but Ann linked to the correcting article in time to squelch me (Vox actually does discuss some things somewhat fairly from time to time).
However, since other people are still posting the original false news, I will point out that none of the pensioners affected by this bill were attending High Schools.
huxley Says:
February 22nd, 2018 at 10:24 pm
* * *
It’s hard to keep the masses agitated when they live in a country that, despite its faults, is still the most prosperous and least oppressive in the history of the world.
The Agitators and Activists Unions ran into the problem of diminishing returns: having to do more and more to fix less and less, because so many of the “big” problems had already been ameliorated.
Now they have slipped over (in some cases) to creating problems so they can be seen trying to solve them.
Comments about these roundtables have been mostly positive (except for the Usual Suspects, of course):
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/22/common-sense-as-a-priority-president-trump-hosts-white-house-roundtable-discussion-on-school-safety/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/21/president-trump-hosts-meeting-with-parents-teachers-and-students-affected-by-school-shootings/
huxley:
When I was a still a leftist in the 90s I watched a documentary, “Berkeley in the Sixties.” It was a high to relive the self-righteous opposition to racism and war. I dug it.
Let me correct that for you. “Berserkeley in the Sixties.”
My opinion is based on what I observed in that fair city around that time.
Gringo, it’s too bad we couldn’t import in some of the real berserkers I knew. Then Berserkeley wouldn’t even exist now as a human institution. It would just be a mass grave.