Now, the next eight times some right-wing nut goes on a shooting spree, they’ll have “but James Hodgkinson!” at the ready.
So be it. I abhor this shooting, and I abhor all such shootings. And while I would agree that it was a damn good thing that the police were there, I would not agree that that just proves that more people should have guns so that more Hodgkinsons can be stopped before inflicting the maximum damage. Teachers and regular citizens aren’t cops. They don’t do repeated drills on taking down perps, and they shouldn’t.
Michael Tomasky
June 15, 2017
One Left-Wing Gunman Doesn’t Make a Movement
[I found it very telling that he went through a long list of political assassinations. He correctly labeled almost all the assassins as left-wing. He exempts John Wilkes Booth from the left-wing label even though he almost for certain was a Democrat and murdered a Republican. Not one of the assassins listed is “right-wing”, and I can’t think of any of the many mass shooters in our country one could call “right-wing”. In fact they almost all clearly identify as Democrat with some being apolitical.
Tomasky then predicts something about “the next eight times some right-wing nut goes on a shooting spree”… Well, if past performance is an indicator of future results then there will be about 500 left-wing mass shooters before we get eight right-wing shooters. And this doesn’t even get into the leftist governments who were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century.
It’s true, teachers and regular citizens aren’t cops. But it is clearly false that we don’t do repeated drills shooting bad guys. There were 90 people doing essentially that at the match I was at last Sunday (I came in 9th out of 24 in my division). And the weekend before there were 26 people doing at the match I participated in (I came in 1st out of 10). Every weekend and many week days there are matches in my area where hundreds of people practice shooting bad guys. Some of us are very, very good at this.
So, why does he claim we shouldn’t be doing this? The only reason I can think of is that he wants us to feel, and be, defenseless against both the left-wing individuals and the left-wing governments.
At one level it amuses me to see someone relate a large body of substantially correct data and then have that person arrive at a conclusion completely at odds with their own data. But on another level it’s a very sad commentary on the irrationality of the ordinary human.—Joe]
It may well be that ordinary citizens who carry, on average, practice their marksmanship more than policemen do.
Ordinary citizens “shouldn’t” do drills to take down “perps” because that is individual self defense, and defense of others. This inherent, inalienable human right, enumerated in the US Constitution, is anathema to collectivists, statists, authoritarians, totalitarians, and all leftists, as it implies individual conscience and individual will, uncontrolled by the state, strong enough to kill over individual self-worth.
For a leftist, only the state should have that power, that authority, that ability to kill its subjects, and as you note, over the past century, the state certainly has used that power to kill.
Yes; Tomasky is exhibiting basic authoritarian thinking (you’re not qualified. Leave it to the “experts”. Central Planning; “WE Should” do this, “WE Should” not do that, etc., etc…). He fails to grasp even the basic the concept of America. In that regard, the second amendment is probably the best litmus test.
In his world view, in which all the important things are decided by panels of experts, and those decisions are then forced on everyone else under some kind of threat, he is being entirely reasonable and predictable.
The notion that regular citizens would be armed, all of their own accord, all helter-skelter like, without a government-run selection, certification and qualification process, is unthinkable, uncivilized, shockingly crude, stupid and unacceptable. It is akin to blasphemy.
Our problem is that almost everyone in the country (including many among the ranks of gun owners and second amendment advocates) thinks along those lines to some extent. Thus we tolerate licensing in many industries, we are proud of our carry permits, and we want the government to design and administer the medical industry, and so on.
Since the Progressive (incrementally Marxist/Eugenicist) era was going strong by 1913, no one alive today has experienced anything resembling the American Promise, and since the American Principles are never taught in public schools (except to malign and impugn them), it is not likely that anyone alive today ever will.
So it is that we will continue to argue over the degree of legalized, wholesale coercion and forget the question of how we might set out to eradicate it altogether. So long as that remains the case, there will, ipso facto, always be infringements to the second amendment.
We had two LEOs at our Tac rifle match last week and they both finished in the bottom half of 16 shooters. They were both good, safe shots but not in the chase with the top shooters.
I shot poorly but I did have to take my soft cast off for every stage.
“One Left-wing Gunman doesn’t make a movement.”
And that’s because the counter is reset after every left-wing gunman hits the news. Each time, it’s sui generis, while if there is any argument for the shooter to be a conservative, every conservative shooter from whenever goes on the list, and everyone who isn’t a cheerleader for Leviathan State has to defend the shooter.
In all fairness, he probably thinks of WW2, Vietnam, etc as “right wing nuts” going on a “shooting spree”.
Train like the police? Is he saying I should shoot less?
Around 2000 I asked my club match director if we could do a PD qual test as one of our matches – we used the PD range. He looked at me and asked why would we do something so simple and low round count.
I did this at one of our local matches. It is complete with video.
Back in the 90’s, cop hiring practices were designed to filter out gun owners and those who had been trained to any degree. If you were part of the gun culture, you had to lie to get hired. I doubt that mentality has changed to any degree. In fact, I suspect that it has only gotten harder to hide a connection to the gun culture, to enable getting hired.
I’m not sure how this figures in with their hiring practices of acquiring veterans, but I suspect that filtering for totalitarian mindset has been their primary focus. The obvious over-focus on SWAT type actions, and their common screwups, lends some legitimacy to this perspective, I suspect.
I became a teacher after I retired from over 20 years as a firefighter and paramedic, where I spent part of my career working with the SWAT team. I spent years as an IDPA competitor, and I am a military veteran. I have carried a concealed weapon for more than 25 years. A permit that has allowed me to carry a weapon into McDonald’s, Disney, public parks, streets and sidewalks. Not once have I used that weapon in a threatening or illegal manner. I have not even had a traffic ticket in more than a decade.
I have spent more than 30 years wearing one uniform or another, defending the people who could not defend themselves, saving lives, and helping others. In that time, I have had dozens of background checks for security clearances, teaching, firefighting, and paramedic licenses, as well as for concealed weapons permits. Again and again over the past three decades, I have proven my character, my devotion, and my trustworthiness.
I would, if necessary, lay down my life in defense of the children that have been placed in my care. Even in Kindergarten. Possibly YOUR children, if you are reading this.
Except the politicians have declared that I am not permitted to do so, because they don’t trust me. So instead, I must sit in the dark, unarmed, unable to protect those children, hiding and waiting for help that may not come, wait with your children to die at the hands of a madman who didn’t obey your laws or your signs.
It makes you want to consider the possibility that politicians like it this way — that they prefer the flashy news headlines resulting from a successful terrorist attack over the not so flashy headlines of an attack foiled by someone like you. And if so, one wonders what can drive people to such evil that they want to see victims to further their political goals.