“It’s true that they have personal experience with a school shooting which is tragic. Its possible that their experience with the shooting will make them research the matter and become experts on the subject.”
Another school shooting has tragically affected America. This has given rise to the usual debate, this time accompanied by something unusual. Students are marching in protest of what they see as lax gun laws. Since it happened at a high school, the students are supposedly marching for their rights. But they often have little knowledge of current gun laws, and even less knowledge of what they want to change and how gun laws will affect society.
They are marching because they are angry, and think that their moral outrage makes them experts on the subject. But these are the same kids that inspired warnings about eating Tide Pods.
(Credit: Facebook/Matthew John)
This seems to follow a national trend, where people equate their anger, discomfort, and outrage to being correct. On campus, people can label somebody or something as racist and then their hurt feelings settle the matter. The speaker or object is part of “white supremacist” culture and then becomes dangerous. Then it can be justifiably removed. Instead of perhaps reading the words of Heather MacDonald on the negative effects of Black Lives Matter on policing, students riot. Instead of looking at why West Point might have named streets after Robert E. Lee and other Confederate heroes, the opponents react with rage and want them removed because of their connection with slavery.
Conservatives are little better. They hate politicians so much that simply calling somebody “the establishment” is enough to ignore their arguments, denigrate their actions, and support a child-raping alternative candidate.
Fake news is often supported because the click-bait headlines stoke the outrage already felt, and there is little rational analysis about the strength of the reporting because it fits the angry narrative they already have.
This brings us back to the gun debate, where praise is given to people screaming at a senator who calmly explains his logical position. The students who are protesting often have little knowledge about actual policy. They don’t know how an assault weapons ban would actually stop the crime from occurring. They don’t know the weaknesses or workarounds in current or proposed policies.
For example, the assault weapons ban can be easily avoided by removing the plastic hand grip and selling it separately. The latest person bought his gun legally and passed a background check. It was the FBI that dropped the ball on investigating the credible tip that they received.
(Credit: Facebook/Gun Rights Matter)
It’s true that they have personal experience with a school shooting which is tragic. Its possible that their experience with the shooting will make them research the matter and become experts on the subject. But it would be their research and sound opinions that make them experts, not their underdeveloped outrage and whatever idea they latch onto initially.
My stepfather was killed in a mass shooting on Fort Bragg over twenty years ago. By the liberal’s logic, I should be an exalted critic whose ideas receive airtime no matter how inane or insipid they are. In reality, the media is jumping on this story because the anti-gun messages of students matches the media’s preconceived notions about gun violence and the supposed solutions.
Students become another pawn in the media’s moral preening against what they see as brutish barbarians who bitterly cling to their guns and religion. And it fits in with our general culture of worshiping outrage and bowing before the most priggish. Its not as fun as stoking outrage, but the answer remains, as always: calm and rational discussion logically dissects an issue.
