What is better, no guns, or more guns?

[B-Man]

The Media Is Lying To The Parkland Survivors

by Peter Hassan

 

I don’t usually write opinion columns and I wasn’t planning on writing one after Wednesday night’s CNN town hall, but the more I thought and reflected on it, the more I became convinced of one ugly truth: the media is failing the Parkland students

 

We’re doing so in three ways.

 

1) We’re lying to them about the political process. Two moments from the CNN town hall, which represented a WWE cage match more than a conversation, offer clear examples.

The first came when Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio pointed out that a truly effective assault weapons ban, one without loopholes, “would literally ban every semi-automatic rifle that’s sold in America.” The students on stage and in the crowd erupted in applause.

 

Anybody with a working knowledge of the political process knows a ban on semi-automatic weapons will never happen. I say weapons here because it’s not just about rifles. Dylan Roof used a pistol to slaughter several church goers. The reality is that semi-automatic weapons of any stripe could be used to commit such atrocities.

 

Due largely to impracticality, Congress isn’t going to ban semi-automatic rifles in America. Rubio voiced the idea as an example of a fairy tale. It will never happen. Full stop. Journalists on both sides of the aisle know it won’t. Or at least we should. And yet reporters indulged the fantasy anyway, playing up the exchange as a “win” for the students and a “loss” for Rubio, as if cheering fairy tales makes them more likely to come true.

 

The second moment came when a student, Cameron Kasky, confronted Rubio about donations from the NRA and used his classmates’ deaths to demand Rubio denounce the NRA’s support. “In the name of 17 people, you cannot ask the NRA to keep their money out of your campaign?” asked Kasky.

 

Attacking the NRA has been a consistent theme of the student campaign for gun control. The idea, encouraged by journalists and liberal activists, is that NRA donations are the reason Republican politicians (and many Democrats) aren’t going to ban most rifles or (as some would like) ban guns outright.

 

The truth is the NRA supports members who already support the Second Amendment, rather than the reverse. Further, the organization’s campaign donations make up a tiny drop in the bucket of political spending. The actual money carries nominal weight compared to the millions of NRA members who vote for politicians who represent their beliefs and values about the Second Amendment.

 

That roughly half the country supports these congressmen gets to the heart of the matter: the political process is fundamentally about compromise. If the gun control crowd wants to achieve substantive goals, they’re going to have to find points of compromise with those millions of NRA members — the same members they are, much to the glee of their fans in the media, smearing as child murderers. Has anybody bothered informing these kids of how the political process works?

 

{SNIP}

 

2) We’re failing the Parkland survivors in another way: by indulging and applauding grieving teenagers’ worst impulses.

 

These teenagers (and adults as well but especially the teenagers) are hurting and searching for answers. I don’t blame them for being angry — they’re in tremendous amounts of pain, it’s a natural reaction — but I do blame the adults goading these teens on as they lash out in anger, accusing people who had nothing to do with a mass murder of being responsible for it.

 

It may make a 16-year-old boy feel good for a moment to blame Dana Loesch for his friends’ deaths, but it’s not really going to make his pain go away. Again, has anybody mentioned that? Or has everybody been too busy ooh-ing and ah-ing as they share viral clips of grieving teenagers totally “DESTROYING” the NRA?

When all is said and done, when the next scandal or tragedy is dominating the news cycle and rifles are still legal, these poor kids will still be searching for answers that yelling at the NRA won’t give them.

 

3) Which brings me to my third point: we’re exploiting the Parkland survivors. We may not be doing so intentionally but the fact is we are. For if the media aren’t operating with the students’ best interests at heart — and the first two points make clear that’s not the case — then we’re operating with some other primary motivation.

 

It’s no secret that the people cheering on these pained and suffering students just happen to share the same political goals (and enemies) as the students. It’s a lot easier to cheer somebody on when they’re skewering your political opponents as child murderers.

 

And then we have traffic and ratings incentives for the media, which are to package these teenagers’ hurt and confusion into segments and clips to be aired over and over again, turning their real pain into reality TV for the rest of us.

 

When CNN executives give the order to put emotional and vulnerable teenagers front and center all day, do we really think their thought process is guided by what’s best for the teens? Is Jeff Zucker all of a sudden an altruist?

 

The more likely and more uncomfortable truth is that networks are putting their own interests first (as networks tend to do) and rationalizing it away as a public service. You can rationalize exploitation any way you want to, but it’s still exploitation.

 

The ugly truth is we’re lying to the Parkland survivors about the political process, enflaming their pain and exploiting their grief. May God have mercy on us all.

 

 

.http://dailycaller.com/2018/02/22/the-media-is-lying-to-the-parkland-survivors/

 

.

 

Edited February 22, 2018 by B-Man

[DC Tom]

32 minutes ago, LA Grant said:

 

Well, gee Tom, it could be that one involves murder. Do you think that might be why? 

 

And the other one involves guns.  

 

Shut up, you !@#$ing moron.

[Doc Brown]

1 hour ago, 3rdnlng said:

No, Trump wasn't against active shooter drills but wanted them referred to as "safety drills" for the sake of kids.

Reminds me of the "tornado drills" we did in elementary school.

[Tiberius]

26 minutes ago, B-Man said:

The Media Is Lying To The Parkland Survivors

by Peter Hassan

 

I don’t usually write opinion columns and I wasn’t planning on writing one after Wednesday night’s CNN town hall, but the more I thought and reflected on it, the more I became convinced of one ugly truth: the media is failing the Parkland students

 

We’re doing so in three ways.

 

1) We’re lying to them about the political process. Two moments from the CNN town hall, which represented a WWE cage match more than a conversation, offer clear examples.

The first came when Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio pointed out that a truly effective assault weapons ban, one without loopholes, “would literally ban every semi-automatic rifle that’s sold in America.” The students on stage and in the crowd erupted in applause.

 

Anybody with a working knowledge of the political process knows a ban on semi-automatic weapons will never happen. I say weapons here because it’s not just about rifles. Dylan Roof used a pistol to slaughter several church goers. The reality is that semi-automatic weapons of any stripe could be used to commit such atrocities.

 

Due largely to impracticality, Congress isn’t going to ban semi-automatic rifles in America. Rubio voiced the idea as an example of a fairy tale. It will never happen. Full stop. Journalists on both sides of the aisle know it won’t. Or at least we should. And yet reporters indulged the fantasy anyway, playing up the exchange as a “win” for the students and a “loss” for Rubio, as if cheering fairy tales makes them more likely to come true.

 

The second moment came when a student, Cameron Kasky, confronted Rubio about donations from the NRA and used his classmates’ deaths to demand Rubio denounce the NRA’s support. “In the name of 17 people, you cannot ask the NRA to keep their money out of your campaign?” asked Kasky.

 

Attacking the NRA has been a consistent theme of the student campaign for gun control. The idea, encouraged by journalists and liberal activists, is that NRA donations are the reason Republican politicians (and many Democrats) aren’t going to ban most rifles or (as some would like) ban guns outright.

 

The truth is the NRA supports members who already support the Second Amendment, rather than the reverse. Further, the organization’s campaign donations make up a tiny drop in the bucket of political spending. The actual money carries nominal weight compared to the millions of NRA members who vote for politicians who represent their beliefs and values about the Second Amendment.

 

That roughly half the country supports these congressmen gets to the heart of the matter: the political process is fundamentally about compromise. If the gun control crowd wants to achieve substantive goals, they’re going to have to find points of compromise with those millions of NRA members — the same members they are, much to the glee of their fans in the media, smearing as child murderers. Has anybody bothered informing these kids of how the political process works?

 

{SNIP}

 

2) We’re failing the Parkland survivors in another way: by indulging and applauding grieving teenagers’ worst impulses.

 

These teenagers (and adults as well but especially the teenagers) are hurting and searching for answers. I don’t blame them for being angry — they’re in tremendous amounts of pain, it’s a natural reaction — but I do blame the adults goading these teens on as they lash out in anger, accusing people who had nothing to do with a mass murder of being responsible for it.

 

It may make a 16-year-old boy feel good for a moment to blame Dana Loesch for his friends’ deaths, but it’s not really going to make his pain go away. Again, has anybody mentioned that? Or has everybody been too busy ooh-ing and ah-ing as they share viral clips of grieving teenagers totally “DESTROYING” the NRA?

When all is said and done, when the next scandal or tragedy is dominating the news cycle and rifles are still legal, these poor kids will still be searching for answers that yelling at the NRA won’t give them.

 

3) Which brings me to my third point: we’re exploiting the Parkland survivors. We may not be doing so intentionally but the fact is we are. For if the media aren’t operating with the students’ best interests at heart — and the first two points make clear that’s not the case — then we’re operating with some other primary motivation.

 

It’s no secret that the people cheering on these pained and suffering students just happen to share the same political goals (and enemies) as the students. It’s a lot easier to cheer somebody on when they’re skewering your political opponents as child murderers.

 

And then we have traffic and ratings incentives for the media, which are to package these teenagers’ hurt and confusion into segments and clips to be aired over and over again, turning their real pain into reality TV for the rest of us.

 

When CNN executives give the order to put emotional and vulnerable teenagers front and center all day, do we really think their thought process is guided by what’s best for the teens? Is Jeff Zucker all of a sudden an altruist?

 

The more likely and more uncomfortable truth is that networks are putting their own interests first (as networks tend to do) and rationalizing it away as a public service. You can rationalize exploitation any way you want to, but it’s still exploitation.

 

The ugly truth is we’re lying to the Parkland survivors about the political process, enflaming their pain and exploiting their grief. May God have mercy on us all.

 

 

.http://dailycaller.com/2018/02/22/the-media-is-lying-to-the-parkland-survivors/

 

.

 

Lol, yes, God have mercy on people exercising their first amendment rights

 

What a jack ass you are

[outsidethebox]

On 2/21/2018 at 10:46 AM, DC Tom said:

 

But calling Trump a Nazi...that's fine.

He will never get it......

[GG]

Another type of Greggy-type article stash for people to connect the dots.  

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mayor-driver-intentionally-crashed-into-er-lit-self-aflame/

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, GG said:

Another type of Greggy-type article stash for people to connect the dots.  

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mayor-driver-intentionally-crashed-into-er-lit-self-aflame/

 

Talk about poor planning.  Who crashes their car into an Emergency Room & then sets themself on fire at a hospital without a burn unit?

 

[LA Grant]

1 hour ago, DC Tom said:

And the other one involves guns.  

 

Shut up, you !@#$ing moron.

 

I know your angle is to just try to identify hypocrisies & call it a day, but even I have a hard time believing you're dumb enough to be suggesting that "opioid death" is murder. And yet!

[RaoulDuke79]

Welp, I wasn't a gun owner, but this thread has inspired me to go get one. Possibly two or three.

[3rdnlng]

7 minutes ago, RaoulDuke79 said:

Welp, I wasn't a gun owner, but this thread has inspired me to go get one. Possibly two or three.

I suggest you look for a "Fatherless" gun and adopt it.

[DC Tom]

1 hour ago, LA Grant said:

 

I know your angle is to just try to identify hypocrisies & call it a day, but even I have a hard time believing you're dumb enough to be suggesting that "opioid death" is murder. And yet!

 

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-overdose-prosecutions-20171114-story.html

[LA Grant]

11 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-overdose-prosecutions-20171114-story.html

 

Guessing you read the headline but not the article? Otherwise I have no idea what point you're trying to make besides "gotcha" or maybe "drugs and guns are the same thing."

 

Because I tend to agree with the father of the victim. Like guns, the answer seems to me to be restricting access and making these harder to get. 

 

Quote

 

Peter Bruun lost his 24-year-old daughter Elisif to an overdose in 2014. He says prosecuting the people who give drugs to victims is “not the solution.”

“Elisif used because she had a disease,” he said. “The criminal justice system is not equipped to address addiction. Period.”

If convicted of second-degree murder, Harrington could have been sentenced to decades in prison. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and was sentenced to16 to 29 months, with credit for time served.

Bruun said he does not blame Harrington for his daughter’s death. He’s become friends with both Harrington and his parents.

After Elisif’s death, Bruun and his wife moved to the quiet of Maine. But he maintains ties to Baltimore. He has launched the New Day Campaign, an art-based initiative to “challenge stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness and substance use.”

Bruun calls the overdose prosecutions “hypocritical.”

“There is a cultural wave to destigmatize those suffering from addiction,” he said. “So now that we’re no long blaming the users as much … we need to find another fall guy, another tangible thing to name as the cause of the problem.”

Bruun said he doesn’t judge grieving parents who disagree with him.

“When you lose your child, you cannot help how you feel,” he said. “There’s a lot of emotion surrounding this. But we can’t let emotion govern what’s right.”

 

 

[DC Tom]

Just now, LA Grant said:

 

Guessing you read the headline but not the article? Otherwise I have no idea what point you're trying to make besides "gotcha" or maybe "drugs and guns are the same thing."

 

Because I tend to agree with the father of the victim. Like guns, the answer seems to me to be restricting access and making these harder to get. 

 

 

 

I don't care who you "agree" with.  Prosecutors are bringing homicide charges against opioid dealers.  They are specifically saying that it can be considered murder under the law.  That is the opposite of "not murder," which was your reason for refusing to recognize the comparison of public health issues of opioids and guns as valid.

 

That's not a "gotcha" moment.  That's a "You're wrong" moment, using facts in a discussion to disabuse your stated notion that was incorrect.  It's also a "you're an ignorant moron" moment, demonstrating the fundamental stupidity and shallowness of your so-called "argument..." but that's less a point of discussion than it is a personal hobby.  And guess which of those two you're going to reinforce next?  (The second - you're going to show you're an ignorant moron.)

[TtownBillsFan]

People who do drugs are at fault.  People who drink and drive are at fault.  People who use a gun to shoot people are at fault.  We want to arrest those that are selling anything illegally.  I think I've covered my bases here.  What was LA's point?

 

[Ol Dirty B]

On 7/20/2014 at 7:43 PM, Alaska Darin said:

Why does it matter? Name the last crime that was committed by someone using 100 round magazine for anything. People who want to kill people have always been able to find a way to do it. Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer and diesel fuel. The VaTech shooter used 2 pistols (a 10 round .22 caliber and a 15 round 9mm) to kill 32 people and wound 17. Changing the size of the magazine probably wouldn't have any real effect. The last time they tried a national magazine size law, the only real change was the price of larger cap mags on the used/reconditioned market. That horse has left the barn.

 

We should be chasing the things that actually matter. The vast majority of gun violence in this country is tied to gang and drug culture. That's where the concentration should be. The gun laws currently on the books should be enforced, swiftly and without mercy on those who use firearms to injure or terrorize others. Until that happens (and it rarely does), there shouldn't be another law passed.

 

What? That's the problem you see in this country?

 

We have repeat offenders when it comes to shootings? I'd love to see your statistics on people who have been able to get guns legally who have used firearms to injure or terrorize.

[Azalin]

9 minutes ago, Ol Dirty B said:

 

What? That's the problem you see in this country?

 

We have repeat offenders when it comes to shootings? I'd love to see your statistics on people who have been able to get guns legally who have used firearms to injure or terrorize.

 

Is your implication that the problem with mass murders in our country is legal gun owners?

[LA Grant]

4 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

I don't care who you "agree" with.  Prosecutors are bringing homicide charges against opioid dealers.  They are specifically saying that it can be considered murder under the law.  That is the opposite of "not murder," which was your reason for refusing to recognize the comparison of public health issues of opioids and guns as valid.

 

That's not a "gotcha" moment.  That's a "You're wrong" moment, using facts in a discussion to disabuse your stated notion that was incorrect.  It's also a "you're an ignorant moron" moment, demonstrating the fundamental stupidity and shallowness of your so-called "argument..." but that's less a point of discussion than it is a personal hobby.  And guess which of those two you're going to reinforce next?  (The second - you're going to show you're an ignorant moron.)

 

Great. Well, as the article points out, it's a stretch of a definition and not an ideal solution for anyone involved. But congratulations on your "not gotcha moment" that is instead a "gotcha, ignorant moron moment" which is somehow different. You have done a wonderful job of articulating no coherent point whatsoever.

 

Obviously you don't care who I agree or disagree with because you don't seem to have core values you're brave enough to share. Instead, it's this pathetic play at "sniping at retards from the balcony" with a freaking Muppet avatar. You, just like a child, have adopted a South Park approach to politics — "everyone is wrong and I'm just pointing it out."  Cool, bro. Your posts offer zero ideas, zero discussion, and offer no value to anyone but yourself; a pointless and shallow exercise in masturbation.

 

This, here, of course, is what you want — this is always the gun debate. The anti-reform defenders only have tactics of distraction. It can never actually be about guns. It's always some other stupid rabbit hole of nonsense. 

 

You should run for president.

[Ol Dirty B]

31 minutes ago, Azalin said:

 

Is your implication that the problem with mass murders in our country is legal gun owners?

 

No, the implication is that gun checks and laws don't go far enough you simpleton. Jesus... you take legal gun owners out of that post? You gun owners are a paranoid lot. It doesn't make the rest of us anymore comfortable with how you cling to your guns.

 

You don't see mass murderer's getting out of prison, buying a gun, then go shooting again. 

 

He talks about gangs and culture, and how it's all illegal guns... The VA Tech shooter that he cites in his post, bought guns legally despite a history of mental illness. Do you know any of what you are talking about? This last shooter was certifiably nuts. 

[LA Grant]

6 hours ago, RaoulDuke79 said:

Welp, I wasn't a gun owner, but this thread has inspired me to go get one. Possibly two or three.

 

Thank you for admitting that your gun purchases will be emotional fear- based decisions. You will be in good company amongst gun owners.

 

  

Quote Alaska Darin said:

 

Why does it matter? Name the last crime that was committed by someone using 100 round magazine for anything. People who want to kill people have always been able to find a way to do it. Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer and diesel fuel. The VaTech shooter used 2 pistols (a 10 round .22 caliber and a 15 round 9mm) to kill 32 people and wound 17. Changing the size of the magazine probably wouldn't have any real effect. The last time they tried a national magazine size law, the only real change was the price of larger cap mags on the used/reconditioned market. That horse has left the barn.

 

We should be chasing the things that actually matter. The vast majority of gun violence in this country is tied to gang and drug culture. That's where the concentration should be. The gun laws currently on the books should be enforced, swiftly and without mercy on those who use firearms to injure or terrorize others. Until that happens (and it rarely does), there shouldn't be another law passed.

 

 

Interesting conclusion. Alaska leads the nation in gun violence despite having one of the lowest poverty rates, which is usually connected with gang/drug culture.  Just as long as nobody blames guns, right?  

1. Alaska

• Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 23.0 per 100,000
• Total firearm deaths 2016: 177 (suicides: 113, homicides: 45)
• Violent crime rate: 804.2 per 100,000 (the highest)
• Permit required to carry handgun: No
• Poverty rate: 9.9% (6th lowest)

 

[ExiledInIllinois]

 

FWIW:

 

 

 

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/gun-violence-has-dropped-dramatically-in-3-states-with-very-different-gun-laws-20180216