gun control

I Don’t Know What To Do

There’s been yet another school rampage shooting, and I don’t know what to do except weep. Best I can tell, nobody else does either.

Oh, there’s a lot of noise and a ton of blame being thrown, and I’ve heard the phrase “common sense gun control” more times than I can count. It’s a meaningless string of words; if there were any effective way to stop rampage shooters with a simple, common sense approach, we’d have done it by now.

Whenever I say that, there are two responses:
– “Well, at least do something!”
and
– “Just ban guns! Ban them all!”

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Strange State

It’s highly unusual for a new president to address Congress within his first year, much less his first hundred days. With a near-deserted hall (thanks to COVID) in a fortified building surrounded by heavily armed riot police and not a few National Guardsmen, tonight’s address made history in several ways.

What wasn’t unusual was the content. Although it was delivered in an almost informal, folksy style, we heard exactly what we expected to. The tone was optimistic, and the message was clear: Biden laid out his agenda for the coming months, and he expects to make it happen. How, exactly, is another question entirely.

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Bloody Spring

Opinion

It’s happened again: We’ve had yet another mass shooting. Just between us, as more and more people start coming out of their year-long lockdowns, I predict we’re going to have a fair number more. We got a year off from them, but that just means we’ve had people become crazy at the normal rate… but they didn’t have obvious targets and so kept right on stewing in their basements.

Plus, every time there’s one of these shown on CNN, it seems other nuts see the television coverage and get inspired to do one of their own — as though being a copycat nut-job is somehow better than the first one, who might have been honestly acting out his own selfish frustrations on innocents rather than pretending to for the free press.

Don’t get me wrong: They’re both foul and almost inhumanly selfish. But the copycat is at least partly after the attention, which is worse — people’s lives are more valuable than that.

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Happy New Year. Now What?

We’ve survived 2020.

Hooray for us. So now what? What’s the new normal going to be?

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On Trump And Civil Unrest

I’m going to be frank with you, and I want you to know why.

The thing is, we spend so much time pussy-footing around dangerous thoughts and ideas these days because we feel we can’t discuss them openly. Cancel Culture has taken its toll; the list of former celebrities only ever grows. Attrition is less among politicians, but pundits and journalists vanish almost daily, because they say something that society refuses to accept — there’s invisible lines, and they cross them, and that’s just something that cannot be borne.

Without judging this phenomenon, I want to acknowledge it and explain in terms accessible even to the meanest understanding why it does not dissuade me from being brutally open and honest about this topic.

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F&L 2020: Trump/Pence vs. Biden/Harris

Opinion/Analysis

It’s been decided:  This November, our ballots will feature Biden/Harris for the Democrats; presumably, they’ll be facing Trump/Pence* for the Republicans.  This settles one of the oft-repeated questions from past weeks, “Who will he pick?”, leaving us with… well, with rather more questions.  These include “What will the electoral map look like?”, “How do the candidates stack up against each other?”, and the all-important “Who should I vote for?”

At present, the editorial staff here at The Not Fake News has mixed feelings ourselves on that last question, so we’re not inclined to opine. (more…)

F&L: Donald Trump and MAGA

One could write volumes about Donald Trump the celebrity, the business mogul, the particularly slimy real estate developer, and so on.  I’m giving that a miss.  As a public person I find him odious and in business I’d resort to extreme measures to avoid him (I haven’t ruled out self-defenestration).  Beyond saying that, it’s entirely immaterial for our purposes.  Our subject is Donald Trump as president: the pros and cons of his tenure, his chance at escaping unscathed from impeachment to run again, and his likelihood of winning in 2020 based on the issues.  That should be enough for one article.

(What:  You didn’t honestly think I would give him a pass just because he’s the Evil One, did you?) (more…)

TRIGGERED: Common Sense Gun Control

This is not being written in response to any particular event.  There was probably one today or yesterday or last week, and CNN no doubt covered it with their usual attention to detail and mechanical concern.  I’m probably pretty sad about it myself.  This is why I’m writing this article on a day when the headlines are about something else.  It’s important to keep perspective.  You can’t create effective policy and solve social problems when you’re too busy yelling or sobbing or both.

Trouble is, I’m furious.  Even today, I can’t help but be furious (more…)

Toward Effective Firearms Laws

Wars and government atrocities aside, the United States has more spree shootings than any other country each year.

This is a problem that demands discussion between reasonable and intelligent people.  Unfortunately, the political climate in this country is one of extreme and entrenched polarization; moral certitude precludes (more…)

Virtue Signalling For Votes

“The only people truly bound by campaign promises are the voters who believe them.”
― Christopher Hitchens

There are two types of promises:  comforting lies, and those meant to be kept.  Campaign promises differ from normal ones only in the choice of subject; where a doctor might tell a panicked child, “Now, you might feel a little pinch,” a politician will promise to end world hunger (more…)