The last point in Nicole Russell's tweet thread is very pertinent to the discussion around gun violence and ownership and how the Democrats have treated gun owners with impunity. Whether it be Robert Francis 'Beto' O'Rourke demanding a complete overhaul of gun ownership when he ran for a senate seat in Texas or the President of the United States continuing after every shooting to promise that he will 'remove assault rifles' but doing nothing on the issue, there doesn't appear to be any solutions to the problems around gun ownership because the simplest one appears to be 'just get rid of them'. It's also pertinent because whilst Republicans offer only their 'thoughts and prayers', which of course is not effective in strategy, the Democrats would much rather bury their heads in the sand and not blame themselves for their own short comings on the debate (even when they had control over both houses and the legislature for years) and push this on Republicans for upholding the constitution and the 2nd Amendment (hereafter referred to as '2A'). In the case of the most recent tragedy, that being the Covenant School in Nashville, TN, there is a certain degree of hypocrisy that has been brought up regarding the topic, whether it being the usual trope that those who believe in the 2A or are responsible gun owners are 'uncaring' or that so called 'weapons of war' need to be confiscated and banned or that the perpetrator is only second to blame behind Republican legislators who wish to uphold the 2A and defend their constitutional right to bear arms, as the Founding Fathers intended. At the end of the day, the Democrats have shown more hypocrisy and contempt for ordinary US citizens over this issue that affects the dynamics of American society.
The attack on the Covenant School is one that has been widely condemned, as it would naturally be. Three children and three members of teaching staff were murdered in cold blood by assailant Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a former pupil who messaged a friend that morning that she would not be alive by the end of the day and it would make national headlines. When this occurred, the attacker was quickly neutralised by the Nashville Police Department and brought the violence to an end. In the aftermath of the attack, after making jokes about coming down to a briefing for mint chocolate chip ice cream, President Biden issued a statement, saying: 'We have to do more to stop gun violence. It's ripping our communities apart, ripping the the soul of this nation[...]and we have to do more to protect our schools so they aren't turned into prisons'. The last bit of the president's statement, I will come to later. The first part is what I shall decipher first. The fact of the matter is, criminals will do whatever it takes to be able to commit their acts regardless of the law. That cannot change, and legislation will not be able to fix that. According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, 98% of all mass shootings in the US took place in 'gun free zones', of which the Covenant School was in. Criminals with the intent of committing acts of terror or violence will naturally break the law in order to do so, and will use any means necessary to commit said acts. In 1990, Joe Biden himself introduced the Gun Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) that was signed by then President George H.W. Bush to prevent this from happening. Alas, it has not changed a thing. So, lazy policy is a factor in what occurs in these shootings, rather than enforcing and enacting proper security measures that could prevent further atrocities. The Robb Elementary School shooting was more damaging due to a result of slow, ineffectual policing that could have saved more lives, if not all lives in the school. Thanks to the swift nature of the Nashville Police, the tragedy at Covenant was lessened as a result. Lessons can be learned when effective strategies, rather than laws and legislation, are put in place. The last part of Joe Biden's speech refers to private security measures that could've been put in place at the school, but as Democrat legislatures have been saying for years, schools should not be treated this way. 95% of teachers claimed that they would be uncomfortable owning guns in their classroom, which is fair. However, it has been shown that schools with a constant police presence, particularly those in urbanised areas where there is more patrolling, are 7.5 times more unlikely to have shootings than those that have refused some sort of security in the local area, and these tend to happen in suburban areas. In some effect, Democrats refusing to allow some police presence near these types of schools, does contribute to the unsafe nature that American children find themselves in.
Next is the issue of responsibility. I've criticised the nature of which Democrats and Republicans routinely blame each other for the massacres that occur, but Democrats particularly (for the most part) tend to forget that the only people to blame for the needless deaths of people are the assailants themselves. In this case, Audrey Hale was solely responsible for killing six people before being shot himself (I will refer to Hale using he/him pronouns as I think this is a) how 'he' identified and b) is important to the context behind the shooting and the hypocrisy over what occurred). Hale owned no more than five or six firearms (sources have conflicting views on this) and took three of these into the school. Hale broke 15-20 Federal, State and Local laws, thus proving the point that those who wish to commit crimes will not hesitate to break those already enacted to commit their acts. More legislation to prevent such crimes has not been effective in eliminating the crimes themselves. As former PM David Cameron had once said, we have to be tougher on the causes of crime not the crimes necessarily themselves. Hale had no prior criminal record, and gave no indication until the day of the massacre that he would commit such an act. Hale was a disturbed individual who was dealing with the mental condition of gender dysphoria and, like most people suffering with this condition, was not dealt with properly in dealing with this. There's an eternal victimisation complex within certain sections of the trans community that states that there is an ongoing 'genocide' of trans people and that their 'lifestyle choices are under threat' because of the criticisms of their actions.
What is baffling about this is both the left-wing and right-wing response to what the 2A means when it comes to equality under law. Conservatives are now pushing for trans people not to have guns whilst the left is trying to reverse this by removing guns from everyone else bar trans people, it seems. I'm for equality, so I believe that trans people should have the right to bear arms against tyranny and for self-defence, but what genocide are they referring to? Statistically speaking, trans people are more likely to kill themselves than be killed. Hale stated in his message that he wanted to die, so there is a case to say that he died in a suicide-by-cop method. In the aftermath of the massacre, there has been unnecessary blame by lots of different sides, trying to think about who was to blame for what happened. Conservatives have blamed the trans community for inflaming and stoking the fires of violence in recent months (which we shall get to) whilst liberals have blamed Christian-Conservative teachings for pushing Hale to commit this act of violence, as well as Republicans for upholding 2A. Only in the last week, trans activists in Australia and New Zealand attacked women defending women's rights, particularly in bathrooms due to new legislation passed by both governments to allow for single-spaced toilets and areas of changing, which makes many women uncomfortable. Then there's the recent Gender Recognition Bill in Scotland which helped bring down Nicola 'Wee Jimmy Krankie' Sturgeon and violent pro-trans protests occurred as a result of it being flagged down by Westminster as the legislation undermined the Equality Act 2010. Trans protests have become increasingly more violent, and some have taken to even extreme measures of posting threatening images online to boot.
I understand that this is a small selection of trans people and this doesn't represent an entire group. This is just showing the hypocrisy of the political left when it comes to what is acceptable violence or not. For the record, threats of all violence are unacceptable, no matter the perpetrator. Leftists, liberals and Democrats have been making correlations between these people and Republican legislators regarding posing with guns, however, none of the Republican legislators have threatened individuals or groups with their guns, just merely having an attitude of 'try and come and get them', rather than going after women as these people have. For the most part, I do believe that it would be fundamentally wrong to deny law-abiding trans people the right to weapons. After all, I believe in the 2A for all people, regardless of colour, creed, religion or sex. It's a fundamental right given to people by the Constitution and should be upheld as such. Some Republicans, like Tim Pool, Steven Crowder, et al. have been hypocritical in their response to Covenant in implying or outright saying that trans people should be denied access to guns and now suddenly care about the mental wellbeing of people when purchasing legal firearms, however, we should not pretend that the political left are also hypocritical in this, trying to not only disarm an entire population when terrible acts happen, but also jump to their own conclusions, particularly after white supremacist attacks. After atrocities like Charleston and El Paso, the political left tarred all white people with the same brush and acted like all young white men were the next Dylann Roof. There were talks of 'white violence' and 'white history' regarding attitudes towards the 2A. Now, they don't want generalisations or even politics to be talked in the wake of Covenant, because it may not be 'the right time'.
And then there's been the outward disgusting responses. Most notably, a Twitter account called 'Trans Resistance Network' called the attack a 'tragedy for two reasons'. First, because of the dead children, but second because Hale felt like he had 'no other choice'. They also have said that we as a collective should respect a murderer by using his correct pronouns.
I don't suppose the 'Trans Resistance Network' would be too happy if Hale had been a straight, white man who killed LGBTQ+ people. There'd be no concern for his welfare then, nor should there be either. Even more foul was the response by @pamwontshutup on TikTok, a geriatric woke woman who decided to take it upon herself to make a heartless response to the tragedy, conflating the children murdered with that of their murderer.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1640957511099617280
0:00-0:10 'You have a transgender person that was finally pushed so far and traumatised so much by the Christian Conservative-Right that they snapped.' There's been no evidence that Hale was pushed by the Christian Conservative-Right, as she claimed, nor does this excuse the murder of children or any other Christian for that matter. In his manifesto, from sources that have been circulating, Hale purposely targeted the school as he had been a student there before. There's nothing to indicate so far that the Church was directly to blame (and if so, this is victim blaming of the highest order).
0:17-0:26 'And now the Christian Conservative-Right will use that transgender person as a poster for why transgender people are evil and need to be eliminated'. Again, it's all reactionary and false information. Some may, but to target and generalise a whole group of people is rather ironic, especially if we consider her previous positions on white men.
0:28-0:34 'They created the environment that allowed that monster to develop [...] they are equally responsible.' No, Hale is responsible for his actions. The children murdered and the school staff killed were not. No different to blaming a woman for being raped because she was 'asking for it'. This is the bottom line of left-wing politics: no personal responsibility for what happened at all.
0:57-1:10 'Any time a marginalised group puts together enough organisation [...] to gain political power, our government goes in to decimate them'. Comparing a transgender shooter who killed children with organisations that were targeted by the government is a new reach. Have you seen the diversity of Biden's government? Hale was not the victim in this as you'd like to think, Pam.
1:23-1:26 'They use Christianity to justify their hate.' I assume you're not referring to the children here, Pam? That the children were somehow responsible for their murders because they happen to be Christian and follow a belief system? Arguably, one could say that Hale used his transgender beliefs as a methodology to hate Christians and use this to attack people.
1:40-1:45 'The cause of all of this [...] is whiteness and white supremacy'. Ah, now we're at the crux of it all. Hale was clearly acting in the name of white supremacy, as was the New York underground shooter, the Jersey City shooters and the San Bernardino attackers. White people must automatically be blamed as a whole, according to Pam. But you can't blame all trans people for what Hale did (and nor should you, for the record). I fee like whiteness and white supremacy have just become buzzwords for the political left now.
1:45-2:15 She goes into a rant about white women now...as a white woman. Forgetting the fact that Hale is a biological white woman. Oops.
I think these comments said it better than I could:
For all the Democrats yelling that 'words are violence' whenever a shooting happened under Trump to connect the former president to white supremacist shootings, they've been surprisingly quiet in their response to left-wing luvvie Jane Fonda's calling for the killing of Christians when she was on 'The View', and not with a hint of irony either.
https://twitter.com/AmiriKing/status/1640515464223653892
Now, I'm not going to say now that Jane Fonda was responsible for what happened in Nashville. It would be just as hypocritical and idiotic to suggest that as much as blaming Trump for the likes of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting and so on. What is alarming is the timing of the message she sent out without irony, and not fully understanding that someone may be inspired by her words and would want to actually go out and kill Christians. Many trans people suffer from mental health problems, and more should be done to combat that over taking guns away from ordinary citizens. Australians and New Zealanders have become so compliant to this that they've also had the strictest COVID lockdowns in the world, had their rights stripped away from them and became so wrapped in a blanket of Stockholm Syndrome because their authoritarian governments told them what they were doing was in the 'greater good' that they were compliant and did not have a way of fighting back. The New Zealand government forced the people through a mandatory, not voluntary, buy-back programme that the government under the totalitarian Jacinda Arden owned a stockpile of weapons that could be used against her own people, hence why there was no fightback for freedom after COVID. The simple fact is that the 2A upholds the principles of freedom, and that is why Christian Conservatives are more likely to own guns: because freedom is a core tenant of their belief system, whereas for the political left, authoritarianism and tyranny must be upheld to consolidate their belief system. As I have said in the past, socialism and democracy cannot exist in the same universe, and that to uphold an authoritarian structure such as socialism (the kind Hanoi Jane advocated for with her support for the Viet Cong and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam), you need a population that is easy to control and disarmed. The 2A was written to stop the US government from going tyrannical, which is how it could go should the American people become compliant and have their freedoms removed.
The biggest threat to American society is ultimately itself. Mental health cases need to be addressed when considering background gun checks that mean people are ultimately safer, not that law-abiding citizens be punished for the actions of a minority that are hellbent on destroying the lives of others. Hale went in on a suicide mission, and whilst it was far too late and the friend he messaged on the morning of the massacre had tried to contact authorities, the case is that it is better to deal with individuals and treat them as such, rather than use group or social justice as a means to help. Big Pharma pushes kids onto drugs, hormonal treatment for some individual youngsters can be damaging and others do not have the family network to better support them. The Republicans do not do enough to support urgent medical attention to deal with the mental health crisis in America and the Democrats are blaming white kids for existing. Another Audrey Hale or another Dylann Roof could be created if misinformation is allowed to spread, whether it be that it is all the fault of one group or another. No single Republican or Democrat is to blame: only Audrey Hale is. He was the one who took it upon himself to shoot six people dead. His victims have been forgotten because certain individuals have taken it upon themselves to make him the victim of a greater injustice that they have made up in their own heads.
These are the people you should remember. Not some psychopathic murderer:
Sources
https://attorneysforfreedom.com/most-mass-shootings-happen-in-gun-free-zones/
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1640957511099617280
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/02/19/parkland-school-shootings-not-new-normal-despite-statistics-stretching-truth-fox-column/349380002/
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/table-12
https://reason.com/2018/04/20/cdc-provides-more-evidence-that-plenty-o/
https://www.cdc.gov/brfss/questionnaires/pdf-ques/98brfss.pdf
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