Ronald Reagan once said, “It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.”
Every day proves that statement to be more and more true.
In looking over the print media coverage of the Parkland , I’ve been astounded at the number of blatantly untrue things about the NRA, guns, I’ve seen reported as fact.
Some examples that stand out to me:
- The NRA is “pro-slaughter”. (WTF?)
- The NRA TV channel produces dangerous, violent content. (Really? Really? Even the most controversial stuff they’ve put out explicitly condemns violence.)
- The NRA is primarily funded by and works for the interests of gun manufacturers and industry, who are unfathomably evil and complicit in the murders of innocents.
- Gun owners and NRA members receive “marching orders” from the NRA itself and follow them like automatons.
- The AR-15 is a “weapon of mass destruction”. (No, it’s just a goddamn rifle.)
- Someone armed with a “conventional” weapon (yes, the article used that term) stands no chance against a bad guy with an AR-15. No chance at all, so why bother?
- Groups like the CSGV, VPC, Giffords, or Everytown are even remotely credible sources for information about guns, gun specifications/technology, etc. Seriously, I’ve seen newspapers quote reps from CSGV and VPC as if they are reputable, credible sources. I had to physically restrain myself from guffawing.
- Plans to “arm teachers” mean something more than “let willing, volunteer teachers carry concealed as a last-resort against violent attack”.
- The “armed teacher” strategy would be something other than “standard lockdown procedures, getting behind cover/concealment like a desk, and aiming a pistol at the door”, and that training requirements would be too rigorous. One particular example, to which I won’t link, stated that soldiers need tons of practice and constant training for tactical movement, coordination, communication, building clearing, etc. (all of which is true!) and implied that similar training would be necessary for teachers, and so that proposals to arm teachers are ludicrous. Ok, fair enough, the training requirements for teachers are likely to be a bit more rigorous than “aim at the door and shoot the bad guy when they come in”, but it’s by no means necessary to turn teachers into Special Forces operators or anything.
- Armed teachers would somehow make things worse in the event of a school shooting. Honestly, I can’t think of much worse things than a deranged killer rampaging through defenseless people. Even in the terrible, exceedingly unlikely situation where an armed teacher hits an innocent person, or a cop clearing the building shoots the armed teacher, that’s almost certainly a better outcome than what would come about if the bad guy was left unchecked.
In addition, I’ve had someone in a discussion claim that it’s equally as morally and ethically repugnant to be “forcing students to be in the same room as an armed teacher” [their position] (even if the teacher is safely carrying concealed with nobody the wiser) as it is to “forcibly deny people the right to self-defense, leaving them defenseless against a deranged bad guy” [my position].
I’ve seriously wondered if something has gotten into the water, because people are losing their minds over this. These are interesting times, and it’ll be interesting to see how things play out.
In the interim, I really need to stop reading the news and stock up on antacids.