The news media is really going hard on this latest gun control push after the horrific shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. I mean we’ve reached new levels on insanity when it comes to peddling the talking points. We all know liberals want to ban AR-15s and other so-called assault weapons, which is lefty speak for this gun scares me and I’m too close-minded, scared, or stupid to try shooting one for myself. We all know this is going to expand to banning high capacity magazines, expanding background checks, which will have a database component; it’s not effective without one regarding private sales, which by the way—are mostly relegated to family members. It’s a confiscatory ethos that liberals have with gun politics, which is why we cannot give up an inch. Give them an inch; they’ll take several thousand miles. Period.
Now, the news media crew has an endless stream of students spouting misinformation about gun laws and straight up peddling pure nonsense on this subject. It keeps the narrative alive. Then, we have MSNBC, which trotted out a would-be school shooter, Aaron Stark, who questioned the need for an AR-15 rifle. The Free Beacon clipped the exchange. Katy Tur interviewed him:
Aaron Stark wrote an open letter this week and read his story aloud in a video, where he said he desired to kill a lot of people and then himself in a mass shooting at his Colorado high school in 1996.
Describing himself as bullied, Stark said he became suicidal and had a "severe lack of love" in his life when he began hiding weapons like knives and shanks. He said the main factor in preventing him from becoming a school shotter, however, was he did not have access to an assault rifle.
"I was almost a school shooter," he wrote. "I am not a school shooter because I didn't have access to guns. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. But people with guns kill lots of people.
[…]
"I think we really need to have a hard look at the effect the guns have," Stark said. "Do we really need to have assault weapons? Do we really need to have people go buy an AR-15 when they're not able to even buy a pistol because they won't pass the background checks?"
Stark said the point of his story was that people should not just focus on guns or mental health at the expense of the other. He encouraged people to focus on "love" and outreach to those who needed the most attention and care.
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Okay—on the last part I think we can all agree on. Still, this looks like another instance where all levels of government failed to protect the American people. Local law enforcement failed. The FBI didn’t follow up on a January 5 tip about the Florida shooter, Nikolas Cruz, a former student who shot and killed 17 people and wounded at least a dozen others last Wednesday. Cruz had no prior criminal convictions and was not adjudicated as mentally unfit, so yeah—he would have passed a background check. Yet, that’s beside the point. The FBI failed us here. These are the people responsible for the firearm background checks and the staff is quite shoddy. Second, and more to the point, you’re going to use a man who almost committed this atrocity, so that you can push the so-called assault weapons ban talking point. This is nuts.
Wait. MSNBC is interviewing a guy who wanted to be a school shooter right now? Seriously?
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) February 20, 2018
Well. That was remarkably irresponsible journalism.
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) February 20, 2018
I agree that reaching out to kids who are marginalized or feel that way is key. There is no doubt about that, but using a possible killer to push gun control seems a bit odd, no? A bit out of touch, huh Katy? What is going on in that control room? Tur also prefaced the interview by asking a question. What’s more valuable: our Second Amendment rights or our kids? Both are valuable and both can be honored equally, as we’ve been doing since out founding. What kind of question is this? You can support and exercise your rights while caring for your family. These aren’t mutually exclusive priorities.
Also, an 18-year old won't be able to pass a background check on a new handgun because you have to be 21 years of age to own one. owning and buying a rifle at 18 is not alien, even in New Jersey, one can buy a rifle at age 18.
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