So a month ago on February 14th was the Parkland shooting. Today, students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida and students from all across the States are participating in a walkout as an act of protest against gun violence, for “nothing being done”; and as an act of “support” for the 17 killed.
In wake of the shootings, social media was like an ant hill that had been kicked over, with the anti-gun nuts going ballistic (as they always do), lamenting about AR-15s, gun violence, politicians “bought” off by the NRA, ridiculing “thoughts and prayers”, and bringing out their keyboard pitchfork and torches.
Along with my newsfeed blowing up on Facebook, came a slew of stupid memes. Below is a collection of some of the dumbest for your painful viewing “pleasure”. I had intended to post this at the end of the weekend of the shooting; but was a lazy blogger.
It did not take long for the race hustlers to push this one:
Here’s a counter-meme to reveal the glaring idiocy:
Of course, it must be either/or (nevermind the veracity of the claim “29”):
The apples to bacon comparison:
Because Nikolas Cruz qualifies as a “well-regulated militia”; and let’s paste it atop a portrait of George Washington just because:
Cruz is not a member of a white supremacist group. Initial claim seemed to be made by an attention seeker.
A walnut to oranges comparison:
What is bizarre, is that it is the pc police who see fit to ban Harper Lee’s book- not conservatives; and they are also the ones who wish to ban the AR-15 and guns in general.
Here’s what the right means when we say quit politicizing the deaths:
So the claim is that these politicians are “bought off” by the NRA. Here’s the reality:
So, does the NRA buy politicians?
There are two real questions to be answered in answering that one: first, does the NRA really spend an outsized amount of money on politics? Second, as a general matter, do outside organizations “buy” the support of politicians, or do they simply support politicians with whom they agree?
On the first question, between 1998 and 2016, the NRA spent approximately $13 million on all candidates, parties, and leadership political action committees, according to the Left’s favorite fact-checker, Politifact. The NRA also spends money on “outside expenditures,” meaning ads they cut themselves, for example, in the amount of $144.3 million, plus another $45.9 million on lobbying. That’s a grand total of $203.2 million on political activities over 18 years, or approximately $22.6 million per 2-year election cycle. The NRA spends far more in presidential years than non-presidential years — according to OpenSecrets, the NRA spent some $54.4 million in 2016 on politics.
Let’s look at some other political actors, by way of contrast.
According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, labor unions spent $1.713 billion on political activities and lobbying for the 2016 election cycle alone. That’s not unusual: they also spent $2.2 billion on political activities in 2008 and 2010, and $1.69 billion in 2012.
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion mill, spent $33.9 million on outside spending from the 2012 through 2016 election cycles, according to OpenSecrets. EMILY’s List, another abortion group, spent $33.2 million on politics in 2016. NextGen Climate Action, a leftist group pushing climate change legislation, spent $22.9 million.
In other words, lots of groups spend lots of money — but the notion that the NRA is disproportionately “buying” politicians is asinine.
Which brings us to the second question: is the NRA actually even “buying” anyone? The answer here is obviously no. The NRA isn’t paying politicians off to change their positions anymore than Planned Parenthood is doing so. There’s a reason the NRA supports pro-gun candidates and Planned Parenthood supports pro-abortion candidates. They pick the candidates who support their agenda and support them. They don’t go around offering cash in briefcases in order to convince those who disagree to go along with their agenda.
The NRA, in reality, is a powerful lobbying organization because a huge number of Americans agree with their agenda. Most gun-owners, even if they aren’t members, see the NRA as a vital organization in defending their Second Amendment rights. Congress isn’t beholden to the NRA — it’s beholden to its own constituents, many of whom support the NRA’s belief system as a general matter.
Naw. Activists are pissed at guns.
Our Founding Fathers used the state of the art weapon at the time.
Semi-automatics shoot bullets as fast as you can pull the trigger and as many bullets as can fit into a clip. I’m not against all forms of gun legislation. I agree that guns have changed and the technology makes it scarier. I don’t even mind entertaining the possibility of banning all guns so long as you can guarantee for me that it won’t just be law-abiding citizens who won’t have access to guns. You can’t. There are around 300 million firearms in the U.S. Confiscation is unlikely and unrealistic.
And if they wish to modify the 2nd Amendment, there is a process to amend the Constitution. Good luck with that.
Yes. Because gun ownership is the moral equivalent to all those nasties. [/sarcasm]
But it is a mental disorder: The brain-washed religious indoctrination into the belief that you’ll achieve martyrdom and 72 virgins by murdering infidels. That’s a mass mental illness.
I’m sure the family of Luke Hoyer would have been thrilled to welcome President Trump to Luke’s funeral.
Bush was criticized for his vacations. President Obama was criticized for his vacations and golfing. Tradition of partisan cheap-shots continues with President Trump.
Schools? Gun-free zones. College campuses? Gun-free zones. Churches? Gun-free and sword-free sanctuaries. Concerts? Weapons-free zones. Why? Because Democrats value disarming citizens over saving and preserving innocent lives against evil intent.
Au contraire mon frère, you wish to take the stick away. Not just the baseball bats, nightsticks, batons, PR-24s, and bahi/rattan/kamagong/black hardwood escrima sticks; but all sticks. And you wish to take them away from the law-abiding. When your child hits another child with the stick, it’s because you’ve already disarmed the other child; and failed to teach your child moral values.
People defending the 2nd Amendment do so with their 1st Amendment powers. It’s funny how the children are the voice of reason when their political beliefs are jiving with their own worldview politics.
Because unarmed math teachers worked out so much better for the safety of the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Right?
From the same people who wish to raise the age requirement for purchasing a firearm:
There are fewer school shootings now than in the 90s. Threats against schools increased right after the Florida shooting. Why do you suppose that is?
We are a population of- what? 350 million?
There’s probably around 27,000 high schools, 11,000 private schools, 90,000 elementary schools. About 50 million public school kids.
The trend over the last few decades (overall until maybe very recently) in murder rate and violent crime has been going down.
What’s really been changing is our connection to each other and to be overwhelmed with news. If it bleeds, it leads. Social media is lit up. Every morning on FB, friends and news sites are flooding my news feed with endless talks about the Florida shooting. And because of that? It’s a magnet that draws other troubled people to find attraction in earning “fame” and try and outdo the previous shooting that attracted so much notoriety for the shooter.
Even though the chances of being in a school shooting are still slim, students are experiencing PTSD? Do you suppose maybe media and activist obsession could account for any of that?
Didn’t Cruz mention he wanted to be a “professional school shooter”?
A day before the Parkland shooting, “Everett student’s journal: ‘I’m learning from past shooters’”:
“I’m preparing myself for the school shooting,” he had written in the journal. “I can’t wait. My aim has gotten much more accurate … I can’t wait to walk into that class and blow all those (expletives) away.”
O’Connor wrote that he wanted the death count to be as high as possible so that the shooting would be infamous, according to court papers. He went into detail about building pressure-cooker bombs, activating inert grenades and deploying explosives for maximum casualties.
“I need to make this count,” O’Connor reportedly wrote. “I’ve been reviewing many mass shootings/bombings (and attempted bombings) I’m learning from past shooters/bombers mistakes.”
March 1st, two weeks after the Parkland shooting, a seventh-grader was planning a school attack; but ended up shooting himself, instead:
Investigators found messages on his cellphone that showed the teen had been planning an attack for at least a week at Jackson Middle School, near Massillon. He also showed admiration for the two students who carried out the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado nearly 19 years ago.
“I’d hurt and destroy something bigger but my schools an easy target,” Simons wrote in one message found on his phone.
“I want to leave a lasting impression on the world,” he said in another message written days before he took the.22-caliber gun to school on Feb. 20. “I’m going to die doing it.”
Reported March 3rd, Accused S.C. teen wanted to outdo other school shootings. The problem, he explained, was the weapon.
Six days before he allegedly opened fire on an elementary school playground, the eighth-grader returned to his Instagram group chat to fixate, yet again, on his most intense interests: guns and bombs and the mass murder of children.
“My plan,” wrote Jesse Osborne, who had turned 14 three weeks earlier, “is shooting my dad getting his keys getting in his truck, driving to the elementary school 4 mins away, once there gear up, shoot out the bottom school class room windows, enter the building, shoot the first class which will be the 2d grade, grab teachers keys so I don’t have to hasle to get through any doors.”
He had been researching other school shooters for months and, determined to outdo them, learned exactly how many people they’d murdered: 13 at Columbine High; 26 at Sandy Hook Elementary; 32 at Virginia Tech.
“I think ill probably most likely kill around 50 or 60,” Jesse declared. “If I get lucky maybe 150.”
“I HAVE TO BEAT ADAM LAZA …,” he wrote nine days before the Sept. 28, 2016, shooting in a misspelled reference to the Sandy Hook killer, Adam Lanza. “Atleast 40.”
Two days later, he debated whether he should attack his middle school, from which he’d been expelled, or his elementary school, just up the road. He decided on Townville Elementary, because it was closer and had no armed security. Jesse, who considered himself the victim of an unfair world, announced online that he would kill kids he didn’t know and had never met “before they bullie the nobodys.”
“Itll be like shooting fish in a barrel,” he wrote his friends, whose identities remain unclear, along with whether the FBI has tracked any of them down. The agency declined to comment, citing Jesse’s open case.
In the chat, he said he had researched police response times for the area and found that it would take them 15 minutes to get there, and maybe 45 for SWAT. He said he would throw pipe bombs into each classroom before he got in a shootout with police and killed himself with his shotgun. He said he had been planning a massacre for two years.
A detective later discovered that Jesse, then a 6-foot-tall, 147-pound wispy-haired blond with a voice that tended to crack, had used his phone to Google these terms: “deadliest US mass shootings,” “top 10 mass shooters,” “youngest mass murderer,” “10 youngest murderers in history.”
Well, the lunch lady, math teacher, and janitor might have shown more action than the FBI that failed the 17 kids, the Broward County Sheriff deputies, the Sheriff himself, the armed high school resource officer. Okay….scratch the math teacher. But hey, let’s just be sitting ducks and not give the chance for those in authority and in proximity the opportunity and right to keep and bear arms, if they feel comfortable with it. Government will protect your children. [/sarcasm]
In 2013, the year before Cruz entered high school, the Broward County school system rewrote its discipline policy to make it much more difficult for administrators to suspend or expel problem students, or for campus police to arrest them for misdemeanors– including some of the crimes Cruz allegedly committed in the years and months leading up to the deadly Feb. 14 shooting at his Fort Lauderdale-area school.
The new policy resulted from an Obama administration effort begun in 2011 to keep students in school and improve racial outcomes (timeline here), and came against a backdrop of other efforts to rein in perceived excesses in “zero tolerance” discipline policies, including in Florida.
Broward school Superintendent Robert W. Runcie – a Chicagoan and Harvard graduate with close ties to President Obama and his Education Department – signed an agreement with the county sheriff and other local jurisdictions to trade cops for counseling. Students charged with various misdemeanors, including assault, would now be disciplined through participation in “healing circles,” obstacle courses and other “self-esteem building” exercises.
Asserting that minority students, in particular, were treated unfairly by traditional approaches to school discipline, Runcie’s goal was to slash arrests and ensure that students, no matter how delinquent, graduated without criminal records.
The achievement gap “becomes intensified in the school-to-prison pipeline, where black males are disproportionately represented,” he said at the time. “We’re not going to continue to arrest our kids,” he added. “Once you have an arrest record, it becomes difficult to get scholarships, get a job, or go into the military.”
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel backed Runcie’s plan to diminish the authority of police in responding to campus crime. A November 2013 video shows him signing the district’s 16-page “collaborative agreement on school discipline,” which lists more than a dozen misdemeanors that can no longer be reported to police, along with five steps police must “exhaust” before even considering placing a student under arrest.
In just a few years, ethnically diverse Broward went from leading the state of Florida in student arrests to boasting one of its lowest school-related incarceration rates. Out-of-school suspensions and expulsions also plummeted.
Runcie had been working closely with Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan on the reforms ever since landing the Broward job in 2011, using as a reference the name of the Cabinet secretary, his former boss in the Chicago school system.
Applications for federal grants reveal that Runcie’s plan factored into approval of tens of millions of dollars in federal funding from Duncan’s department.
In January 2014, his department issued new discipline guidelines strongly recommending that the nation’s schools use law enforcement measures and out-of-school suspensions as a last resort. Announced jointly by Duncan and then-Attorney General Eric Holder, the new procedures came as more than friendly guidance from Uncle Sam – they also came with threats of federal investigations and defunding for districts that refused to fully comply.
Is the goal reducing homicides? Reduction of gun violence? Or specific to the above meme, reducing violent murder by the AR-15? Because the AR-15 and other semi-auto rifles account for a slim minority of gun homicides.
Sure. Because the alternative of being a sitting duck in a shooting gallery is so much safer. That worked out well for the 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High.
Burn.
100% of the populace there “highly trained” in firearm use? Ambushed and many of them disarmed of any firearm and chance of shooting back? Similar logic used in the following illogic meme:
No. It just proves that a coward with a gun is still a coward.
Never let a crisis go to waste and not pull out the race card.
Yup. This is why our military is so hated around the world. We just bomb women and children. Not expend our own blood and treasure toward nation-building.
Other countries have different histories, population densities, cultures etc… to draw a comparison that “gun laws” are the defining difference is not only irrational it is completely proven wrong by all available data…
Australia is the prime example used from gun control activists to make their point…
Homicide rates in australia did not have an anomalous drop post gun ban… they in fact continued on with the trends that were developing at the time… The US has had an almost identical percentage drop in homicide as australia in that time…
In fact gun ownership is at an all time high and homicide is at an all time low…
To date there is no study ever produced that found that pre to post gun bans resulted in a drop in homicide beyond what was trending…
Australia for example always had less homicide than us… they have a completely different culture, population and history..
The UK actually saw quite a spike in violent crime after it’s gun ban and it only returned to pre gun ban trends of reduction in homicide when they introduced 20 000 new police to the streets as a way to counter act it…
If you removed the top 5 violent cities in the US we are among the lowest in the world for homicide…
Mexico, brazil both have stricter gun laws (much stricter) and have significantly more crime (if we are playing the dumb game of comparing countries).. Swizterland has comparable gun ownership and significantly less homicide… same for israel
80 percent of all guns used in homicide are illegally obtained… 80 percent of all guns used in homicide are handguns…
How many firearms were used for lawful defense purposes or by law enforcement officers in the line of duty as opposed to intentional harm by criminals?
60% of all handgun deaths are suicides- not homicide.
If you removed the top 5 violent cities in the US we are among the lowest in the world for homicide…
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
A coward with a gun is useless.
That coward is collecting $60,000/yr and enjoying his forced retirement.
A sports coach was not so cowardly.
He did not have a gun so he tried to at least shield a few students with his body.
He died but saved lives.
An ROTC student was also not so cowardly.
He did not have a gun, either, but he held a door open for other students to get thru so they could get away from the shooter and live.
He died but he saved many lives.
How much better might it have been if either of those two had been armed?
For one thing, before Joe Biden’s “Gun-Free-School-Zone” was enacted schools were rarely targeted by shooters.
The number of school attacks quadrupled in the years afterward.
Nearly everyone of the memes shows ignorant arrogance, the ones that mention mental health are really off base research and find that most mass shooters had been or were on on meds, seen by professionals, could it be the drugs? https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/
Have they even tried alternative treatments..biofeedback, better nutrition, always drugs that try to control serotonin so the kid at times can feel nothing then the cutting begins….
A mass shooting at a Gun Free School Zone and dumber then a sack of rocks liberals blame the NRA should we blame Proctor & Gamble for the dumb youths eating Tide Pods? its just with the McDonald’s Coffee there are times when the consumer its careless and they need to be blamed like the idiot who sued McDonald’s and Burger King for his obesity the trouble with liberals is their always looking for scapegoats
The liberal Antifa is threatening to kill me and my family for being conservative.
And now liberal politicians who back Antifa want to disarm me.
And my fellow conservatives want to “compromise” with all of this…..
Well Wordsmith, perhaps your political contribution numbers identifies why it is that the Republican political machine goes all out to dismantle labor unions and Planned Parenthood while genuflecting to deepthroat the NRA.
@Ajay42302: What does the NRA do? Aside from trying to protect the 2nd amendment for all citizens? What do you know of the organization?
No party has done the labor unions dirty like the Democrats driving most manufacturing out of the country with regulations and high taxes.
Unions are turning republican red like no other group.https://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/donald-trump-did-really-well-with-union-househo…
No, I am not interested in discussing a full gun ban, even if it would also take all guns away from criminals.
I’m a 62-year old with a cane, and there’s always going to be the 16-year old with a knife. Or a bat. And his or her pack of friends.
And you, Wordsmith, are willing to discuss disarming me? Go to hell.
@kitt: And don’t forget that planned butcherhood murders far more people than any combination of firearms.
These brave, heroic useful idiots in training stood outside for one minute for every student killed in Parkland; 17 minutes. If those courageous students decided to protest one second for each abortion committed in 2017, they would be standing outside for 3.8 days.
Yeah, liberal policies work great… once you stop keeping records of the crime and human misery it causes and blame the results on guns.
And, what do those 5 cities all have in common? The same ideological wasteland that manipulates children into props for the same failed policies that put those 5 cities in the top 5.
@kitt: AJ represents the goal of the left: vilify the NRA and undercut a source of support for the 2nd Amendment among Congress. The left can never abide an open, honest argument and must shut the dialogue down by whatever means. They make accusations of racism, phobia this, phobia that, violent intimidation and, while pouring millions of dollars into the pockets of representatives (some of it, as in the case of unions or Planned Parenthood, taxpayer provided) they vilify any contributions to anyone that supports their mortal enemy… the Constitution.
@Petercat:
Possibly when all guns are collected from all who wish to do harm. We will know when this has been accomplished when all wealthy liberals give up their armed security (Bernie was protected by armed guards as he joined with the malleable students to denounce gun ownership today). Obama can go strolling at night through the depressed neighborhoods of Chicago. Pelosi can mingle with the illegal immigrant drug dealers in San Francisco. Schumer can walk the streets in Harlem, Queens and Brooklyn. Hopefully Sheriff Israel is not keeping the records. Apparently the idiot de Blasio believes this level of security has already been reached as he has pulled armed protection out of NYC schools. Again, the left is more than happy to use children as sacrificial lambs in pursuit of disarming American citizens.
@Petercat: What caliber is that cane? Those things aint cheap https://www.gunbroker.com/item/754049174
@Bookdoc: Every 10 years medical mistakes and properly administered prescription drugs kill more Americans than all the soldiers killed in every war including the revolutionary war.
The latest commercial to extend your painful cancer by months paying 12 k per month for the drug but you still die a miserable death, a damn bullet paleeze.
Why are they not having a walk out to protest violent video games music and movies? why are they not walking out to protest against ANTIFA ? why are they not walking out to protest abortions? Becuase they would not get the big coverage from the liberal leftists news media like CNN and the NYT’s and i bet George Soros and Micheal Bloomberg is behind all this as well as liberal rags like TIME,ROLLING STONE and NEWSWEEK
Here’s a new one to consider: Tuesday, March 13, 2018 — 7,000 pairs of shoes cover Capitol lawn to honor kids killed in shootings since Sandy Hook
@Greg: Too bad it’s an utterly worthless gesture.
But we know the Libs will use dead kids to their advantage.
@kitt: #10
It’s a .22, sadly, but it holds 18 shots.
Built it out of a tube-fed Marlin.
I should have at least used a .22 Magnum.
And the grip has a Tungsten powder insert, the stuff used to add weight to pinewood derby cars. I can get up a mighty swing.
@Spurwing Plover:
Because all of those are allies of the Democrats. Hollywood supports Democrats and the violence is in support of Democrats. They have manipulated and motivated these kids as props for their theater of public safety who’s true objective is to render the American public defenseless and easier to conquer.
@Greg: I wonder why they aren’t protesting the FBI being asleep at the switch or the social engineering in Broward County that kept Cruz under the radar and out of the very background system the left calls for? Why aren’t they protesting the sheriff’s department stand down order to make sure Cruz satisfied his blood lust? Why are they letting the very people who made those failures possible turn them into useful idiots?
The answer is clear and simple. It is made obvious by the very reaction and ferocity of the reaction in the exactly wrong direction; once again the left is remorselessly exploiting human tragedy, made possible by NOTHING but big-governmental failures, to push their anti-gun agenda. Need more proof? The left is willing to do the OPPOSITE of what is required in order to make sure conditions are ripe for more of the tragedies so useful to the left. We are supposed to heed the “wisdom” of 16 year olds who can’t even make their own beds of pick up their own underwear while the cries of real concern are ignored. Typical liberal-think.
Read those accounts above of kids PLANNING to conduct school shootings. Is this just because of the existence of the AR-15? No, they are motivated by some sick desire to gain fame through horror and if an AR-15 is not available, they will simple use something else. It is idiotic to think banning a weapon is the pathway to safety and more idiotic to think intelligent citizens don’t see the true agenda.
@Petercat: I was thinking it would be a hurrycane revolver shooting scoot tennis balls 😉
Greg Lets see t hem display baby booties for the number of abortions since the infamous Roe vs Wade rulings it would make that pile of shoes look minicule
One thing the idiotic meme of all the worst-case scenarios if teachers and personnel are allowed to conceal carry leaves out; if the teachers and staff are potentially armed, there would BE NO shootings. It is the “gun free zone” that makes the school the target. The left’s solution is to the threat of a shooting is to ban the future sales of something of which there are millions already available, not to mention numerous alternatives. More absolute proof that banning guns for law abiding Americans is more important to liberals than public safety.
As an FYI, there WERE semi-auto firearms available during the Revolutionary War…BUT they were too expensive for the Continental Army to afford. Sort of blow the musket/AR BS out of the water.
Humans are a very inventive species, they’ll find lots of ways to kill. The biggest group of murderers are the Leftist/Communist/Marxists/Socialists i.e. the Democrats.
Peace through superior firepower
@kitt: #17
Only if the balls were filled with lead shot!
Good times, good times.
@Petercat: Aye captain grape shot rounds in yer blunderbuss tennis balls.
Well, one thing is for sure; armed personnel inside the schools is certainly not the answer, is it?
Today a school resource officer in Maryland shot and killed an active shooter after the shooter wounded 2 children, he didnt stop and ask what type of weapon the shooter had he did his job…Hero.
@kitt: Let the marching demanding armed protection begin. Oh… wait… doesn’t promote the anti-gun agenda.
Never mind.
@Deplorable Me:Did the 17 year old shooter know he couldnt have that gun til he was 21.
@kitt: I think the NRA forced him to take it, against his will.
@Deplorable Me: It was the gun itself the murderous weapon it had the innocent child hypnotized with it magical powers. These powers vanish when the child turns 21.
It will come out that some doctor put this kid on mind altering drugs.
MLSD goes full retard http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/03/21/joy-reid-md-shooter-wouldve-used-ar-15-nra-way/