The Tennessee School Shooting Doesn’t Seem to Fit the Narrative — Gadsden

On the drive home from work this evening (3/27/2023) the local CBS-affiliated radio station reported on a school shooting in Nashville. According to the report, the shooter was a 28-year-old biological female that identified as male. The shooter killed 3 children and 3 adults before being killed by police.

The report also stated that the shooter had maps of the facility (a private Christian school) and a “manifesto” — the details of which were not released.

Social media and more than a few “talking heads” quickly attributed the derangement of the shooter to laws passed by Tennessee prohibiting “gender-affirming” medical procedures on children. This, even though as of this writing, no theory of motive has been released (to my knowledge).

The entirely predictable response from the gun-control crowd was “it’s the gun.” I’ve covered that argument before here but once again — it’s not the gun, it’s the shooter.

I have also seen a good deal of nonsense on social media about the “awesome power” of the AR-15. So let’s just dispel that once and for all by the numbers. A roughly “standard” load for the .223 Remington / 5.56 NATO launches a .224" diameter bullet with about 1200 ft/lbs. of energy at the muzzle. One of the most popular game hunting cartridges — the .30–06 Springfield — launches a .308" diameter bullet with about 2900 ft/lbs. of energy at the muzzle. The hunting cartridge has over twice the bullet energy of the .223 (for those of you that know the topic, yes I know there are variations in bullet weights and loads but what I’ve detailed here is a pretty fair ballpark). Can we dispense now with the falsehoods about this alleged super-deadly cartridge that the AR-15 uses? Thank you!

Back to the school shooting today.

Some may wonder why, at the start of this article, I reiterated what I had heard in the report regarding the “gender identity” of the shooter. It’s a fair question and in a sane world that was not driven by hysterical political rhetoric, it may well be irrelevant. But the fact is that if the shooter had been a right-wing extremist the media and pols would find that relevant. Therefore, it is relevant — their rules, not mine.

The new rule appears to be that when the shooter turns out to be a right-wing nut, the cause is right-wing rhetoric and when the shooter turns out to be a left-wing nut the cause is right-wing policy. See how that works?

(That was not a Gads original — I have to credit the source.)

I will be interested to see how the media tries to spin this (assuming of course it stays in the news for more than 24 hours or so).

It appears the shooter was a former student at the school. It also appears the shooter may not have entirely embraced Christian teachings from what we are hearing so far. Was this retaliation? Was it a religious “hate crime?” I rather doubt it will be spun that way — at least not by legacy media.

More likely it will be framed as retaliation for laws passed by Tennessee. If the media and pundits attempt to “justify” this base on these laws they may create another problem.

If the left gets its way and bans semi-automatic rifles, and violence erupts in the wake of that, will the left also blame the laws? I don’t think so. But in that eventuality, the same “justification” would apply.

But here is what the left certainly won’t do. They won’t even discuss, let alone embrace, any policy ideas that might address this. Tom over at Rucksack Radio posted an article a while back with several suggestions for school safety, none of which infringed on the rights of any law-abiding citizen. I’ve never heard anyone on the left embrace any of his suggestions and I have no idea why. Instead, the left claims the right offers no solutions — which is false (read the article linked).

The problem here is, we don’t address the problem. Of all the thousands of “gun deaths” the gun-control nuts spout off about in this country, two-thirds (or more) are suicides. They of course include suicide in the numbers to inflate the numbers. But this reveals as much about the root cause as it does the left agenda. The left will argue that the right is trying to “distract you” with talk of mental health — so let me say this again — two-thirds or more of firearms-related deaths in this country are suicides. In Congress, this would be referred to as a supermajority — a veto-proof majority — and the left is going to argue that the problem is the gun, not mental health, not the shooter.

Take a look at the events of today, take a look at what we know of the shooter, and take a look at the numbers — even the number the left puts out — and tell me the issue isn’t mental health.

And of course — this shooting happened in a “gun-free zone” — they always do. I guess in addition to being mentally ill, the shooter couldn’t read.

If the left is interested in solving a problem, I’m all ears. If the left is more interested in making money from the “victim” market — not so much. I’d much rather the left get serious or shut up.

Gadsden1

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Originally published at https://gadsden1.com on March 28, 2023.