Shoot First, Think Never

Torrents of emotional verbal dysentery in the aftermath of school shootings are always way off target.

Beta O’Rourke

Part 1 of 2.

Let’s take a moment to pause and reflect on the real victims of school shootings—law enforcement. The inconvenience of having nearly half a city’s budget provide for everything a LE department needs to handle any situation only to be asked to actually have to do something when the worst possible situation arises that they have spent hours training and preparing for must be a real nuisance.

Historically well functioning societies always expected their firemen to run into burning buildings, their servicemen to be deployed to occupy far off distant lands that cover the earth while ignoring hoards of invaders coming across their own borders, and law enforcement to cordon off areas with yellow tape to crowd control hysterical parents while they listen to their children be slaughtered in their classrooms. If the yellow tape doesn’t work we expect those law officers to really jump into action and tase, tackle or subdue any histrionic parents who decide to take action against mass shooters without all the neat toys that they financially helped supply to the officers subduing them.

As with most culturally divisive issues, there is almost never any logical deductive reasoning or rational objective thinking applied to the issue. Most people are either reactive emotional responders or tribal ideological adherers. Neither requires thinking at all. This applies to all sides of the issue, though some people are more likely to have facts and statistics on their side and it’s rarely the reactive emotional responders.

Here are a few of the common emotional responses blurted out on cue in the immediate aftermath of school shootings, followed by some data to support or refute those claims.

Violent video games are responsible for the rise in mass shootings and school shootings.

This is actually an argument made by some conservatives including commentator Michael Savage and even former President Trump in the aftermath of mass shootings in El Paso, TX, and Dayton, OH in the same week that killed 30. This is not a rational or true argument that those concerned with protecting the Second Amendment and fighting against increased “gun control” laws should make, if only because it’s not accurate and there are far better arguments with data to support them.

https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171474

“Basically, by keeping young males busy with things they like – and this would include everything from playing sports and collecting stamps to playing first-person shooter video games – you keep them off the streets and out of trouble,” says Christopher Ferguson, associate professor and co-chairman of the Department of Psychology at Stetson University and author of Mortal Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games is Wrong.

He adds that newer studies “with better methods” have typically failed to find much evidence of a connection between brutal games and even minor aggressive acts, let alone violence.

“The tide has turned against linking video games to violence. There’s more skepticism these days,” he said. A group of 238 scholars asked the American Psychological Association to retire its “outdated and problematic statements on video game violence.”

Ban Weapons of War or Assault Weapons.

The 1994 assault weapons ban (Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act) passed by Congress that was in effect for over a decade had no meaningful impact on homicide rates by firearm or mass shootings. Those who commit homicide with firearms or know anything at all about firearms know that killing is far easier with a handgun, particularly in close quarters than with an “assault rifle”. The phrase “assault rifle” like her latest cousin “weapons of war” is a marketing term created by public relations focus groups designed to scare people into supporting their ban. Most are simple semi-automatic rifles of no greater caliber than old-school bolt action hunting rifles. That they have “high capacity” magazines is another debate entirely though not necessary as there are handguns like the popular Glock 17 that support 100 round drum magazines and can be made to fire ‘full auto’. With two handguns holding 9mm 30-round magazines, one in each hand, a school shooter could do as much or more damage than with any single “assault rifle” holding a 30-round magazine.

1994-2004 “assault weapon” ban.

The ban on so-called assault weapons wasn’t really needed as prior to 1994 there weren’t many “mass shootings” or school shootings. Columbine happened in 1999, which many consider the first major school shooting where the event became both a political tool and a source of mass media hysteria that almost exploited the tragedies for ratings while giving the criminals as much celebratory publicity as possible.

Repeal the Second Amendment.

Crime had already been falling considerably since peaking in the 1970s and early 80s, interestingly the last period the nation experienced economic stagnation, inflation, and high energy prices. Violent crime has been rising again for the first time in thirty years under similar conditions. Although it’s less likely due to economic factors and more likely attributable to the intentional anarcho-tyranny of Democrat lawmakers and their funders like George Soros who install hapless puppets that refuse to enforce any laws or prosecute violent criminals, releasing millions of them on the streets to re-re-re-re-re offend. See Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and San Fransisco for obvious examples, though there are a dozen other cities following this intentional madness.

The fact that there are already almost 400 million firearms in ownership or circulation throughout the United States means that repealing the second amendment would require a massive “gun grab” by the federal government with help required from state and local governments to execute. No pun intended. The more lawmakers even threaten such actions, the more guns are sold in a particular year with over 20 million now sold annually. That’s 20 million more that would need to be “seized” than the year prior, from cold dead hands that will not comply.

The logistics of such an undertaking are not only impractical but would likely lead to something approximating a second civil war. The only hope “gun grabbers” have is to amplify mass shooting events and pump out the propaganda around guns, the fantasy of effective ‘gun control’ laws and emotionally manipulate the masses into an Australia-like event where the masses voluntarily turn over their guns to the government.

There is absolutely no correlation between gun ownership, the number of firearms in circulation, and higher murder rates. Actually, the inverse is true. The best defense against a criminal with a gun is not 9-1-1 and waiting five minutes while crossing your fingers that the responding LE officers are brave and competent. The best defense is being armed to counter the violent threat. Those who support a nationwide gun grab cannot wrap their minds around this fact, having been sufficiently conditioned to believe that firearms, in and of themselves are deadly. This is part of the ideological mind virus that denies human agency. The firearm does the killing, not the human who illegally acquires it, holds it, points it, and pulls the trigger with the intent of taking another human life.

Firearm possession increased substantially while homicides per capita declined substantially. No correlation between firearm circulation and increased murder rates.

While mass shootings and school shootings have increased with an overall increase in firearms per capita, the question then becomes are the increase in firearms causing the school shootings, or is the amplified hysteria around tragic events and subsequent calls for seizing or banning firearms causing people to rush out to stockpile what they fear might soon be banned?

Gun “control” laws have no discernable impact on homicide rates by firearm for the simple fact that any criminal intent on carrying out a crime by firearm will find a way to obtain that weapon illegally. No criminal with intent ever stopped to think, “Oh damn. I could get a year in prison if I buy this handgun illegally here in Chicago, so I’d better not do that even though I really want to put a cap in that nigga’s ass which would get me life in prison.”

The one year in prison would likely not happen anyway in a Democrat-controlled city where the prosecutor would not prosecute possession of an illegal firearm. Why have gun control laws if the same party pushing for them won’t even enforce any violent crime laws at all in the most violent urban areas? The goal is to demonize gun ownership and firearms in general so individuals are more reliant on the state. This is part of the anarcho-tyranny agenda. Criminals are set free, while law-abiding gun owners are demonized and persecuted as the cause of the chaos and violence so that their rights can be infringed because of the intentional anarchy unleashed by intentionally useless mayors and prosecutors who care nothing for human rights or human life.

Handguns have always been the preferred weapon of murderers. And gun control laws in cities like New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., and California have absolutely no effective impact on reducing gun violence compared to cities with no gun control laws, meaning there’s something else at play there. Doubtless, something we’re not allowed to talk about that might actually be rooted in reality and thereby provide a path toward an effective solution. Nobody in power really wants that. Talking about real problems and working toward real solutions would render lawmakers impotent, and they want more power, which is only justified with greater chaos and catastrophe.

Governments are predictably useless in solving this problem and probably exacerbate it by preventing law-abiding citizens from easily acquiring and carrying firearms for self-defense in many cities. The false label “assault weapons” is an embarrassment to those who utter it and reveals a likelihood that the person proselytizing about the issue has never held or operated a firearm in their life.

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one.

– Thomas Jefferson

Two Paths To Self Defense.

That the constitutional right to bear arms is even a debate comes down to philosophical differences apparent on most issues. There are those who believe the government is capable of meeting all their needs, including safety and security and there are those who, while distrusting of government for endless justifiable reasons, would rather manage their own safety and security measures.

Democrats fall into the first category and want to disarm the population. They believe in total government solutions, which require all citizens put their faith in only government servants to protect them, just like those school children in Texas.

A 9-1-1 call takes about 4-10 minutes to result in a response from law enforcement in almost any city or town. In a hostile situation with an armed belligerent that means one has to hope the hostile person with a firearm delivers a very long soliloquy like a Bond Villain before pulling the trigger.

On the other hand, a Sig Sauer P365 concealed on the hip or appendix requires anywhere from 2-4 seconds to produce and deliver a satisfying and lasting response. A responsible gun owner with even rudimentary firearms training and practice is a much more reliable defense than looking at a watch and hoping for a miracle from the state.

The gun control lobby considers these self-defense scenarios gun nut “fantasies”. There’s a reason the media subvert stories with happy endings involving criminals and citizens who carry. It would undermine their narrative that guns as objects kill people rather than protect people and save lives. The YouTube channel Active Self Protection, which is surprisingly still active and not blacklisted, shows endless hours of security surveillance footage of good guys with guns ending bad guys intent on doing harm. One can lose an entire day perusing that channel’s archives of bad hombres who messed with the wrong citizens and took the room temperature challenge. Unfortunately due to strict gun laws around the world, it’s not common enough.

On the other hand, there are probably hundreds of thousands of spirits floating through our cosmos regretting they were not carrying at the time they became a victim of firearm violence whispering to other spirits, “I wish I chose to be judged by twelve than carried by six. Why did I listen to Chucky Schumer?”

But there’s a reason Democrats and their deep state swamp creatures want gun buybacks, gun confiscations, bans, and “control” and a repeal of the Second Amendment: A disarmed population is easy to control and enslave. A disarmed population has no power. A disarmed population provides zero resistance. Dependency on the state makes people weak and vulnerable and takes away their right to self-determination in the pursuit of life and liberty.

The gun “debate” is not really about guns. The mass shooting and school shooting “debates” are not about firearms either. The gun portion of the “debate” is rooted in agency, responsibility, constitutional rights, perceptions of safety and trust.

• Who do you trust to protect you from danger, you or the government?

• Guns do not kill people, people do. Denying this fact denies the individual agency over selves and attributes the danger to the tool, not the motivations of the nefarious actor.

• Denying agency removes the responsibility of the individual and allows gun control advocates to point to the tool as the source of the problem to which all solutions will be aimed.

• This denies the right of law-abiding responsible citizens to own and bear arms, to accommodate the desire for safety by those who refuse to acknowledge the root causes of any events involving firearms and the indiscriminate taking of human life.

• That the illusion of safety, denial of human agency, and persecution of a useful and effective tool take prominence in “debates” is by design for ulterior motives of enhancing state power and dependency of the populace.

The root causes of the rise in mass/school shootings are more likely to be found outside the firearms data and statistics.

If it isn’t violent video games, violent movies, or popular culture (as toxic and deprived as it is) and gun control measures don’t work, nor would a 2nd amendment repeal, and “assault weapons” or total gun ownership is not the problem, what is really going on here?

In part two we examine other more likely candidates to consider that often get ignored in the wake of mass shootings and the resulting inevitable parade of screaming political opportunists flooding the public sphere with torrents of irrational verbal dysentery.

*All graphs and statistics are FBI or ATF data unless specified otherwise on the graphic or with a separate link.

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