Weingarten: What we can learn from the Nashville shooting
The Nashville City Hall is located about 16 minutes from the private school where six people died.
March 29, 2023
At this point, I am sure you have heard about the horrific shooting that took place at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, this past Monday, and my goal in this article is to reflect on this situation and hopefully bring something of value to the discussions that will follow another event like this.
When shootings occur in America, it ruffles the feathers of many and causes others to raise the defense of transcendent rights that are impenetrable. This stems from the contentious debate over guns in America and what role they should play in American society. One side believes that guns should be banned, and the other claims the opposite–a very simple debate that gains complexity as it unfolds.
In Nashville, the shooter, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, “legally bought seven firearms from five local gun stores.” Even more disturbing was the fact that she was able to purchase the weapons with a known history of “an undisclosed emotional disorder.”
This was due to Tennessee disallowing a red-flag law, which would let police intervene in situations where someone who owns guns could be potentially dangerous.
This forces me to question the utter carelessness of lawmakers in this region (and those who support similar legislation). If you are a responsible gun owner and you strongly support the right to own them, wouldn’t you only want equally responsible people to own them? Why should people with a history of mental illness be allowed to own weapons, especially if they have been declared a danger to others?
Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said that if the police had been aware of Hale’s situation, “then we would have tried to get those weapons.” The police shouldn’t be the ones hyper-surveilling people to see if they are dangerous around guns, but there should be far more communication between health professionals and gun owners.
Privacy could even be protected, but before someone buys a gun and slaughters children and teachers at schools, it needs to be communicated whether they should even be allowed to own a gun in the first place.
Although guns are a right, they are also most definitely a privilege, especially considering the implications if they aren’t treated as such. Too many people are dying at the hands of man-made weapons, most notably the American youth.
The New England Journal of Medicine found that since 2020, guns are the leading cause of death among US children and adolescents. Ironically, Tennessee is also an abortion-free state since outlawing it by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. How can you be pro-life and allow your children to be slain at the hands of war machines that are used for sport and enjoyment?
One may claim that guns are important for self-defense, and while there are select cases where guns have been useful, David Hemenway, a Harvard researcher, found that according to the “National Crime Victimization Survey, people defended themselves with a gun in nearly 0.9 percent of crimes from 2007 to 2011.” For such a minute amount, it is worth considering different ways we can mitigate our schools from being domestic battlefields.
Plain and simple, it needs to be more difficult to own a gun. It’s harder to get a big loan or adopt a pet in many cases than it is to purchase a weapon, and until we find a way to balance out this complicated equation, there will be many more discussions surrounding tough-to-talk-about topics like this.
David Jackson | Mar 29, 2023 at 10:25 pm
The level of complete ignorance on display here is frightening.
“Even more disturbing was the fact that she was able to purchase the weapons with a known history of “an undisclosed emotional disorder.” – Weingarten
Two things…if it were undisclosed that means nobody knew about it. By definition that makes it impossible for anything to be done. Also, when the undisclosed emotional disorder will get you called a bigot for disclosing it, that makes it difficult to disclose. Who do we have to thank for that?
“Why should people with a history of mental illness be allowed to own weapons, especially if they have been declared a danger to others?” – Weingarten
Because “declared” isn’t due process. There’s a difference between someone being found a danger to themselves or others in court and a declaration from someone or some bureaucrat. That difference is due process, a rather important part of living in a free country.
“Although guns are a right, they are also most definitely a privilege…” -Weingarten
That’s not how legal rights and legal privileges work. One is something you have the authority to do because you’re a human being, the other is something you can only do after you’ve been granted legal permission.
“The New England Journal of Medicine found that since 2020, guns are the leading cause of death among US children and adolescents.” – Weingarten
That’s because they include gang shootings of 18 and 19 year olds (who are legally adults, not children) in with the children so the crime invested urban centers where there are high numbers of drug trafficking related shootings pad their numbers for dramatic effect.
And the award for the worst propaghanda in this article goes to:
“One may claim that guns are important for self-defense, and while there are select cases where guns have been useful, David Hemenway, a Harvard researcher, found that according to the “National Crime Victimization Survey, people defended themselves with a gun in nearly 0.9 percent of crimes from 2007 to 2011.” – Weingarten
David Hemenway’s research and the shameless propaganda piece in NPR knowingly dismisses threat of force firearms self defense in order to falsely claim self-defense with a firearm is rare. It’s not just criminologists Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, concluded there are between 2.2 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses annually. Estimates on the amount of defensive gun usage vary, but even the most conservative estimate, courtesy of previous NCVS estimated anywhere between 60,000-120,000 individuals use a gun to defend themselves from violence every year and other estimates from CDC data go as high as 2.5million. But with anything if you have an agenda you like to pick the data you use, and NPR along with the gun control lobby will include suicides in their data, and exclude threat of force self-defense occurrences, where the homeowner or potential rape victim pulled a gun and the attacker fled instead of having to be shot, in order to paint the picture owning guns is more dangerous than not.
It doesn’t take a lot of investigative journalism to find that information. If you bother to look for it.
PS: Not being allowed to post links to comments is ridiculous censorship
Nuke | Apr 4, 2023 at 10:30 am
Word soup and unfounded attacks on reputable sources, as usual. I’ll take up one point and move on with my day:
“undisclosed emotional disorder” refers to the fact that the exact diagnosis was not known, not that the diagnosis was a secret. Yet you assume the shooter was under the care of a mental health professional for gender dysphoria. That, Mr. Jackson, is how one arrives at bigotry.
Daivd Jackson | Apr 5, 2023 at 5:59 pm
If the exact diagnosis was not known, it certainly wouldn’t have been on record as a prohibition during a background check, would it? Yet, as usual when backed into a corner by facts and logic, the leftist mind turns to the tried-and-true accusations of bigotry.
You completely ignored the point being made about rights vs privileges and due process, which is the main point of the response. So, in addition to the 2nd Amendment, tell me you don’t support most of the Bill of Rights without telling me you don’t support most of the Bill of Rights.
Just more word soup and unfounded attacks on reputable sources? I made points with supporting evidence that anyone reading this can look up. Yet you reply with word soup, unfounded attacks, and nothing resembling a coherent argument disproving what was written. Just name calling.
David Jackson | Apr 5, 2023 at 6:33 pm
If the exact diagnosis was not known, it certainly wouldn’t have been on record as a prohibition during a background check, would it? Yet, as usual when backed into a corner by facts and logic, the leftist mind turns to the tried-and-true accusations of bigotry.
You completely ignored the point being made about rights vs privileges and due process, which is the main point of the response. So, in addition to the 2nd Amendment, tell me you don’t support most of the Bill of Rights without telling me you don’t support most of the Bill of Rights.
Just more word soup and unfounded attacks on reputable sources? I made points with supporting evidence that anyone reading this can look up. Yet you reply with word soup, unfounded attacks, and nothing resembling a coherent argument disproving what was written. Just name calling.