With yesterday’s shooting at the YouTube headquarters, social media was flying hard and heavy with accusations against the NRA. One of my favorite hot takes came from good old Shannon Watts.
In light of the shooting in San Bruno at YouTube, will the @NRA apologize for this disgusting tweet in which it calls on its members to “rise up” against the company’s decision to take down how-to gun videos? https://t.co/5RgvFf02wT
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) April 3, 2018
Actress Alyssa Milano added her two cents, as well.
If @NRA or @NRATv were run by brown or black people, it would be labeled a terrorist organization with hate propaganda programming that incites violence. https://t.co/xnSyKXP8yk
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) April 3, 2018
Michael Ian Black had a lot to say with tweets similar to this one:
https://twitter.com/michaelianblack/status/981315732037349378
And this:
https://twitter.com/michaelianblack/status/981330419718262785
But, as we learned, the shooter wasn’t the NRA type. In fact, she went against pretty much every stereotype of attempted mass shooter out there. She was a she, for one thing. Her name is of Middle Eastern extraction, described by some as being Persian. She’s also been described as a PETA member and was clearly vegan.
Further, her rampage happened in the kind of place the anti-gunners claim it couldn’t.
California has tight gun control laws, yet she got a gun. YouTube’s headquarters was a gun free zone, yet she entered the premises and opened fire. It’s almost like gun control laws and gun free zones don’t mean jack.
Well, not quite. We have the story of this gentleman.
https://twitter.com/CalebJHull/status/981285807452540928
How interesting. Someone who was in an attempted mass shooting like this wishes he had a gun so he could have shot back? Fascinating!
Yet let’s be real here, this is not a unique situation. A lot of people find themselves wishing they had a gun at a time like that. No one likes feeling helpless and defenseless, like a newborn kitten. We’re a predatory species. We’re not comfortable being prey, which is why our instinct isn’t always to run but to sometimes fight.
Laws that disarm good, law-abiding people don’t stop things like this, and they never have. At best, they’ll stop the mythical armed citizen who gets outraged and suddenly becomes inclined to shoot up the place. That just doesn’t happen with any regularity in places without gun free zones. It’s a nonfactor.
But a potential mass shooter entering a gun free zone and opening fire? Yeah, that happens. It happens a lot more than the other.
Yet we see people like our famous friends above who still want to blame the NRA for this, despite this happening in one of the states most likely to ignore anything the NRA wants. If this can happen in a state like California–and a number of mass shootings do–then it can happen anywhere, and there’s absolutely nothing that can be done about it.
So, does anyone out there think it’s time to stop demonizing the NRA and the 5 million Americans who are members of it and maybe, just maybe, try to look for real solutions?
Especially since it appears there is evidence that this is yet another police failure?
BREAKING: Just spoke to the father of Nasim Aghdam. He says his daughter had been missing for several days. When cops found her in NorCal last night, he warned them she was angry with YouTube. @CBSLA pic.twitter.com/mgCw9ivqos
— Tina Patel (@tina_patel) April 4, 2018
Whoops.
Look, let’s say I were open to things the gun grabbers want. I’m not, but let’s play pretend.
If I were willing to support these sorts of things, I’d want to know they would actually accomplish something. As it stands, there’s no reason to think that. Especially when law enforcement failures seem to be at the root of most of these mass shootings.
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