Second-Amendment Martyrs

Our guest columnist is NRO contributor Charlotte Allen.

There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a sizeable number of whom were undoubtedly 11- and 12-year-old boys (it was a K–6 school), all the personnel — the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the “reading specialist” — were female. There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees. Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass-murderers. The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, seemed to have performed bravely. According to reports, she activated the school’s public-address system and also lunged at Lanza, before he shot her to death. Some of the teachers managed to save all or some of their charges by rushing them into closets or bathrooms. But in general, a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.

Newtown Answers [NRO]

Our guest columnist is in deep shit.

The National Rifle Association of America is made up of four million moms and dads, sons and daughters – and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown.

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Our guest columnist manages to go 681 words without mentioning “well-regulated”.

It is easy, and in moments of despair such as Friday quite understandable, to scream “more” to gun control, “more” to the morass of airport-style security that is spreading its way across our institutions, “more” to the diagnosis and institutionalization of the mentally ill. But it is much harder to write the laws that would have guaranteed Adam Lanza could never find a gun, or enter a school by force, or go without what diagnosis, treatment, and supervision he might have needed. And hardest of all to write them in such a way that the republic we’d be left with would still look like America in the ways we value most.

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“Well, I think they should attack things like that…. with satire. I mean, Ned Sherrin.  Fair’s fair. I think people should be able to make up their own minds for me.” [“Pepperpot,” Python, Monty; Book I, Chapter 5.]

Premises: Americans love violence. (See, e.g., Eastwood movies, Schwarzenegger movies, the NFL, the NHL (1917-2013), etc.)  Americans also love (a) guns and (b) sport.  (See id.)  Americans also love games of chance. (See, e.g., Powerball, Las Vegas, etc.)  Americans particularly love television shows where unknown people can theoretically win something. (See, e.g., game shows, reality TV, etc.)  Indeed, Americans love any television show on which one might appear (see, e.g., signs held up at sporting events where the broadcasting network’s initials are featured); this holds even for shows on which people might not actually like to appear, but provide some sort of thrill anyway (see, e.g., “Cops,” “The Maury Povich Show,” etc.).  And Americans’ love for things grows exponentially when combined.  (See, e.g., value meals, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, etc.)

TOTALLY NECESSARY CONCLUSION: The next mass-shooting must be the subject of a nationwide lottery, so that the location, and the specific victims, are determined in advance — and so that said town, and said victims, can be made the subject of a reality television series in the run-up to the actual tragedy, and the subject of post-event television specials, telethons, and all other kinds of opportunities to be on television, in ways that will allow the maximum amount of public sympathy to result, and that will allow the maximum number of people to royally cash in.

The benefits are obvious. But they are explained anyway, after the jump.

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So, who’s up today?

A suspect is in FBI custody after a security guard was shot in the lobby of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian organization based in downtown D.C.

The guard — shot in the arm — is in stable condition at the hospital. But then there’s this:

Authorities found two loaded magazines with 15 rounds each in the suspect’s backpack, as well as Chick-Fil-A promotional materials, NBC4’s Jackie Bensen reported.

Our Fucking Idiot is either a rare Lefty Fucking Idiot, or profoundly unclear on the concept.

Security Guard Shot at Family Research Council in Downtown DC [NBC Washington]

Update:

A security guard at the Family Research Council was shot and wounded Wednesday morning after a scuffle with a man who expressed disagreement with the group’s conservative views in the lobby of the group’s headquarters in downtown Washington, authorities said.

Enjoy the Wingnut Hypocrisy Carnival, everybody!

Security guard shot at Family Research Council in downtown D.C. [WaPo]

“The suspect in a shooting that killed a Brazos County constable and one civilian died from injuries during a shootout near the Texas A&M University campus Monday afternoon. Three other people were injured in the gunfire, including two College Station police officers and a civilian.” [WFAA]