Yesterday evil decided to visit another school, this time in Santa Fe Texas. As of this posting 10 confirmed dead with another 10 wounded and the lunatic loser of a murderer in custody. Coincidently, whether by accident or on purpose, May 18th is actually the anniversary of the worst school massacre in US history, the Bath School Massacre. On May 18th, 1927 another lunatic loser detonated explosives at an elementary school and killed 38 children, 6 adults, and himself. He also killed his wife earlier in the day. I only bring this up because it seems the current lunatic loser also had explosives, that apparently did not work, which is an odd choice of weapons for your typical school shooter. Was this an attempt to emulate and even exceed the Bath School Massacre loss of life?
But getting back on point, again the usual suspects come pouring out calling for more gun control, except this time their standard talking points don’t seem to be forthcoming. The proponents appear to be at a loss about what to call for,except the very vague “something”. Why is this? Well quite simply,this loser upended the game and did things a bit different.
This loser broke down almost every standard stereotype about a mass school shooting; chose to use a shotgun and revolver, appeared to not be your typical loner as he was on the JV football team, didn’t appear to have any family issues, no overly troubling digital footprint, etc…
It was his choice of weaponry more than anything else that has the gun control fanatics in a box. He used two weapons the vast majority of gun control proponents think are the “good guns”. Initially it was reported he used an AR15 by some outlets, but I think that was media whores betting the odds and trying to be “first” to report the news about this event without any REAL source for this inaccurate reporting. So drawing on my post after the Marjory Stonehouse Douglas massacre, their goto talking points by and large are lost on this event.
Neither weapon, at this time, appears to qualify as an “Assault Weapon”, so calls banning those in response to this is using a tragedy to further an agenda. But leave it to the politicians and/or their lackeys to be political ghouls, some candidates are actually fund raising off the deaths of 9 young teens and a substitute teacher.
The high capacity magazine ban, well I have not heard the type of shotgun used, but it is possible it was magazine or drum fed, but that has yet to be revealed.
The gun show loophole, as in most of these shootings, the weapons appear to be legally acquired by someone else, the murderer’s father. It appears they were purchased via a NICS check as well, so this talking point doesn’t apply.
Lastly there is the “no fly/no buy” loophole, this murderer doesn’t ever appear to have been on anyone’s R.A.D.A.R. So yet again, closing this “loophole” would not have prevented this massacre.
All this has the gun control proponents painted in a corner. There is nothing specific they can call for and demonstrate it would have even had the potential to prevent this massacre, short of a change in federal law that absolutely BANS the simple possession and/or usage of a firearm below a certain age. There is a federal law close to a ban, but it has several exemptions to it, so highly unlikely it has ever been used to prosecute anyone. So these people are just vaguely calling out for “something”, or “common sense legislation” or other such vague and obfuscatory terms.
Sadly, I suspect with the Royal Nuptials and this stereotype breaking shooting, the chattering about this massacre will fade. Ten funerals will be held, hopefully none of the injured succumb to their wounds, and this murderer will spend the next 50 to 60 years of his life in a cage. which is more than he deserves to be perfectly honest.
Very few people are going to call out for what REALLY needs to be focused on, the broken young men of our society. Why are they broken? What or who is causing them to break? When are they being broken? Can we identify the broken ones early enough to glue them back together? Even sadder is if people start asking these question, no one will support answering them. It would take longer than an election cycle to get the answers and Congress is not about to try to do anything that takes longer than two years. Congress wants something they can parade around in a campaign ad or in a town hall meeting beyond simply stating “We are looking into it!!” They would rather try to placate the masses on their particular side of the argument; either calling for more gun control, or calling to enforce the laws we already have. It is such a good thing we are not relying on the 21st century Congresses to get us to the moon. I suspect dogs and/or cats would have come up with a space program before any of the modern Congresses could get around to it.