I have not much to say about what is now being dubbed by the media as the temple shootings. Robert Stacy McCain is compiling the facts as they come in. Expect the gun control groups to be exploiting this to the max for their political agenda. Expect the media to exploit this to the max for ratings and readership. Expect that to inspire another deranged lunatic to seek infamy.
Category: Current Events
Hammer Attack
In New York City. Clearly Bloomberg isn’t doing enough to combat hammer violence. Maybe there should be some kind of licensing, both to own and carry a hammer. You’d think from much of the rhetoric of our opponents that man was never violent until the invention of the firearm.
The Unreliable 100 Round Drum Magazine
A Jennifer pointed out, it actually saved lives. If he had stuck to the standard 20 and 30 round magazines, a lot more people would have likely been killed. We keep telling our opponents that magazine capacity is not the end-all-be-all of lethality, and that many factors play into it. Something they don’t seem to want to accept.
Chick-fil-a Controversy Manufactured by Media?
I came across this link which suggested that the entire controversy over Chick-fil-a and gay marriage was ginned up by the media. It included a link to the original source of the conversely, and being partial to making judgements based on original source material, I decided to read it.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Dan Cathy is opposed to gay marriage. His religious values would practically guarantee that. But I do have to admit the context in which he was speaking sounds more like heterosexual marriage rather than gay marriage:
It began as a college scholarship and expanded to a foster care program, an international ministry, and a conference and retreat center modeled after the Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove.
“That morphed into a marriage program in conjunction with national marriage ministries,” Cathy added.
Some have opposed the company’s support of the traditional family. “Well, guilty as charged,” said Cathy when asked about the company’s position.
“We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.
He’s speaking here of the WinShape Foundation, which has a program that is described thusly:
Truett Cathy‘s middle son, Don “Bubba” Cathy, and his wife Cindy, also head up efforts to minister to couples in strengthening their marriages. The retreat center offers several special events for couples—ranging from couples who have healthy marriages to couples who are actively considering divorce. The program seeks to promote healthy marriages and families.
If the claim that in this context, Cathy is speaking of heterosexual marriage, I buy it. But I think it’s a stretch to suggest that “biblical definition of a family unit” would ever include a gay family in the minds of the Cathy family, and as the Wikipedia entry notes, WinShape has given substantial funding to Eagle Forum, Focus on the Family,Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Family Research Council, Exodus International and the Marriage & Family Legacy Fund. Since the controversy, it seems WinShape is agreeing to get out of the debate on gay marriage, and leave the political arena. For a business, this is wise.
So while the media may have ginned up a controversy from this one article which nowhere mentions gay rights or gay marriage, it’s a fact that the WinShape foundation has given money to causes that oppose gay marriage. As for the controversy, I think Popehat said it best in this “Eat Less Totalitarianism” post:
Menino could use his bully pulpit to call on Bostonians to reject Chick-Fil-A if they come to town. He could call for social opprobrium on Chick-Fil-A and its affiliates and even on its patrons. He could organize protests and marches and letter-writing campaigns. He could carry a sign in front of Chick-Fil-A saying “BE LES BIGOT” if it opens. But if he says he’ll use the coercive power of government to retaliate against Chick-Fil-A for views he doesn’t like, he’s totalitarian.
Read the whole thing.
Some in the Media Speak Out
The Investors Business Daily laments gun free zones. The OC Register editorializes against bringing back the Assault Weapons Ban. E.J. Montini is a columnist for The Arizona Republic, and he laments our post-massacre routine:
Eventually, however, [the media will] figure out, as I did in Edmond all those years ago, that the best thing they can do for a grieving community is to leave town.
I couldn’t agree more.
Quote of the Day
Says James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, in regards to the complaint that there’s no debate on gun control:
When people find it necessary to demand a “debate” or complain about the absence of same, it usually means they’re frustrated because there is a debate and their side is losing.
Word. Hat tip Instapundit.
Chris Christie on Political Grandstanding
He might not be the 2nd Amendment’s best buddy, but I do give him credit for speaking out on the politicization of tragedy:
“People were just killed over the weekend,” he said. “Can we take a deep breath before politicians start sending out press releases? Can we allow the people to be mourned appropriately by their families before you have opportunistic politicians out there trying to make political points in an election year?”
[…]
“I’m not going to get into the gun control issue while these people are still waiting to be buried,” he said. “And it may not offend you or bother you, but it offends me and bothers me.”
Adjust Your Tin Foil Hats Accordingly
The conspiracy crowd already has one about the Aurora shootings that I have seen several places on the Internets. Namely that this guy was unemployed, so how could he have afforded all this exotic equipment (because no one, ever, has gone on a spending binge with their Visa), or found much of it. Given that the United Nations is about to pass an Arms Trade Treaty, it’s pretty obvious that the Obama Administration staged this whole thing to create a pretext for signing the United States onto the ATT.
I’m finding it difficult to believe that this Administration would go so far as to hire a spree killer, in Denver of all places, to create a pretext to put a legally meaningless signature on a treaty whose draft doesn’t even exist yet. It’s one of the more wild-eyed conspiracies I’ve seen. Sometimes, albeit rarely, someone descends into the madness of schizophrenia in a way that they become wildly dangerous to those around them. If you look at this guy’s life before the madness consumed him, what you’re struck by is what a tragic waste of human potential this disease represents. I suspect the lure of these conspiracy theories is that they give something random and senseless some understandable and acceptable narrative. But I think it fits in the realm of what Professor Reynolds said a few days ago, “Others may blame Hollywood. In both cases, it’s a mix of opportunism and a desire not to confront the existence of evil,” and I wish our folks wouldn’t engage in it.
Kobayashi Maru
Given the amount of time I’ve spent in a car between Friday evening and this morning, I’ve been following along with Twitter discussion about the Aurora mass killing. The truth is that both sides like to present simplistic rhetoric. On our side, you still see plenty of “If only one of the theater goers was armed, this would have been prevented!”
I’ve been reading about how elaborately his guy planned, and I have to say, this looks an awful lot like a Kobayashi Maru scenario to me. How often to you practice shooting in a dark theater filled with tear gas? This isn’t to say that I want some pant wetter from the Brady crowd telling me I can’t carry a gun, because I’ll take my odds with a gun as opposed to without, but I’m afraid I rank this scenario up there with hearing your door break down, grabbing your defensive firearm, only to find yourself pointing a gun at a SWAT team that got the wrong address. I support your right to be armed, but I wouldn’t bet on your coming out of that scenario unscathed.
A gun only improves the odds. It doesn’t guarantee victory. Society is always going to be vulnerable to paranoid schizophrenics who are high functioning enough to plan, and intelligent enough to plan well. As Joe Huffman points out, it could have been much much worse. You could double or triple the number of people carrying firearms, and that’s not going to change.
Too Late
Dave Kopel: “Don’t turn Aurora killer into a celebrity.“