Sunday, December 30, 2012

NRA's Wayne LaPierre Is Shooting Blanks

From Mother Jones:
As the scope of the massacre in Newtown became clear, some news accounts suggested that mass shootings in the United States have not increased, based on a broad definition of them. But in fact 2012 has been unprecedented for a particular kind of horror that's been on the rise in recent years, from Virginia Tech to Tucson to Aurora to Oak Creek to Newtown. There have been at least 62 such mass shootings in the last three decades, attacks in which the killer took the lives of four or more people (the FBI's baseline for mass murder) in a public place—a school, a workplace, a mall, a religious building. Seven of them have occurred this year alone
Along with three other similar though less lethal rampages—at a Portland shopping mall, a Milwaukee spa, and a Cleveland high school—2012 has been the worst year for these events in modern US history, with 151 victims injured and killed. More than a quarter of them were young children and teenagers. 
The National Rifle Association and its allies would have us believe that the solution to this epidemic, itself but a sliver of America's overall gun violence, is to put firearms in the hands of as many citizens as possible. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," declared the NRA's Wayne LaPierre in a press conference a week after Newtown, the same day bells tolled at the National Cathedral and the devastated town mourned its 28 dead. (That day a gunman in Pennsylvania also murdered three people and wounded a state trooper shortly before LaPierre gave his remarks.) LaPierre explained that it was a travesty for a school principal to face evil unarmed, and he called for gun-wielding security officers to be deployed in every school in America. 
As many commentators noted, it was particularly callous of the NRA to double down on its long-standing proposal to fight gun violence with more guns while parents in Newtown were burying their first graders. But more importantly, the NRA's argument is bereft of supporting evidence. A closer look reveals that their case for arming Americans against mass shooters is nothing more than a cynical ideological talking point—one dressed up in appeals to heroism and the defense of constitutional freedom, and wholly reliant on misdirection and half truths. If only Sandy Hook's principal had been packing heat, the argument goes, she could've stopped the mass killer. There's just one little problem with this: Not a single one of the 62 mass shootings we studied in our investigation has been stopped this way—even as the nation has been flooded with millions of additional firearms and a barrage of recent laws has made it easier than ever for ordinary citizens to carry them in public places, including bars, parks, and schools. 
Attempts by armed citizens to stop shooters are rare. At least two such attempts in recent years ended badly, with the would-be good guys gravely wounded or killed. Meanwhile, the five cases most commonly cited as instances of regular folks stopping massacres fall apart under scrutiny: Either they didn't involve ordinary citizens taking action—those who intervened were actually cops, trained security officers, or military personnel—or the citizens took action after the shooting rampages appeared to have already ended. (Or in some cases, both.) 
But those facts don't matter to the gun rights die-hards, who never seem to run out of intellectually dishonest ammo. Most recentlythey've pointed to the Portland shopping mall rampage earlier in December, in which an armed civilian reportedly drew his gun but thought twice about potentially hurting an innocent bystander and ducked for cover instead of firing. The assailant suddenly got scared of this retreating good guy with the gun, they claim, and promptly shot himself dead. Obviously.




9 comments:

  1. Another term for an armed school guard? How about "first victim".

    It's a pure fantasy to think that the "good guy with a gun" has any chance at all of taking out the armed gunman. Anybody who has studied the art of war and infantry tactics knows that the attacker controls the time, the place, and the method of attack. The only thing that will prevent these slaughters are physical barriers to entry. Yes, schools need to be turned into prisons. Sounds great, doesn't it? Once we take the schools off the target list, then what? The shopping malls, parks, churches. They're next. Yeah, that's the ticket.

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    1. Columbine had an armed security guard. He was the one that ran away and hid.

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    2. I don't know where you got the idea that he ran away. The official account describes the deputy on duty as being on his lunch break, and then responded immediately to the first calls that came over the internal walkie talkie. That deputy did respond and engaged Harris, firing four shots.

      Seriously, what you just said is wholly beyond the pale, and I expect an immediate retraction.

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    3. There's the official account and there's what really happened. Don't hold your breath for that retraction.

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    4. What's your source?

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    5. Accounts of people that were there.

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    6. I'm sorry, but that's not going to cut it. To paraphrase Hitchens, powerful claims require powerful evidence. If there were said witnesses, then their statements would be in the official reports. Otherwise it's just hearsay. Sorry, but when you use this platform to call others out on their lies and you can't produce evidence to support a libelous allegation, then you've lost all credibility. You're just like Widgerson, et. al. But that's what makes bloggers different than journalists, I guess. Sorry pal, you just lost a reader. Shame on you.

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    7. Hmm. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. But then again, I have a feeling you weren't a regular reader anyway. Good luck to you! Cheers!

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  2. When the Titanic sank, despite survivor-eye-witness accounts, the powers that be put a media spin on things immediately following the disaster.

    History repeats itself in cycles, and the official accounts (Columbine, or whatever) are always controlled.

    It is like the BP oil spill.

    Surely, you have seen all the commercials (created by BP) indicating that the Gulf is having its best season ever?

    BP says one thing, real people from those locations seem to say another.

    The American Dream is great, stay asleep!

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