What's this? A double post? Yup, that only means you, the reader, get more delicious opinions of mine. Enjoy!

So I'm not entirely sure why I picked this article, or rather, this blog in particular. But I found this interesting article by Ann Coulter about her response to the perceived responses of liberals about the Oregon shooting.

I don't necessarily agree with the position Ann takes, and long story short, I think her positions are misguided simply because she doesn't understand the arguments others are making. Her blog is aimed towards the far right, so for those leaning left, you might want to buckle up.


Ann starts off her article attacking leftist media for essentially agenda setting. She asserts that the leftist media overemphasizes shootings done by white males while under reporting shootings done by minorities. To quote her, "...Chris Harper-Mercer, was a half-black immigrant, so the media are refusing to get too specific about him. They don't want to reward the fiend with publicity!". She even gives us a formula for how it works, " If possible, blame it on angry white men; when that won't work, blame it on guns."

Personally, while I can see where one could make that argument, I think there are better ways to explain this media bias she is experiencing (I do not actually think the media is doing this, I only know of 2 mass shooters by name, that's Jame Holmes and Dylan Roof. Sure they're both white, but I think it makes more sense to say that its just a coincidence rather than agenda setting). If anything, I would argue it's something that all media, left or right, is perpetuating. Each side takes mass shootings and uses it for their own goals. So I think that raising the finger at leftist media is really just the pot calling the kettle black.

Next she points our attention to the claim of the Oregon shooter being mentally ill and how "the liberals" are quick to defend the rights of the mentally ill. She pushes the blame on the therapeutic community who defends people with mental illness. Saying, "When will the public rise up and demand that the therapeutic community stop loosing these nuts on the public? After the fact, scores of psychiatrists are always lining up to testify that the defendant was legally insane, unable to control his actions. That information would be a lot more helpful before the wanton slaughter."

What she doesn't seem to understand is that in a lot of these cases, we don't know people are mentally ill until after a tragedy happens. So it's not as if these people are walking around already documented. And for those that are, we can't always be sure if they are going to unleash a wave of violence. Also worth pointing out, saying somebody is "mentally ill" is actually pretty vague. She goes on later to specify that the few mentally ill people who go on to commit acts of violence are "paranoid schizophrenics". She doesn't really back that claim up with any data, but I'm assuming she is just picking the most stigmatized mental illness out of the air and not actually making a matter of fact claim. Regardless, if she plans on attacking people with mental illness, she needs to understand how people with various mental illnesses cognitively operate. I think we can agree that not all people with mental illness should be deemed innocent when faced with judgement from violent crimes (for example, if someone has an anger problem), but in the case of the paranoid schizophrenic, they literately do not have a grasp on reality. They literately do not understand what really is happening around them. And in those cases, I would like to think she would agree with me that not all individuals with mental illnesses should be punished when they are acting within a condition that causes one to have irrational actions. But unfortunately she doesn't quite understand mental illness, and because of this her positions is really absurd. 

When you couple this with her "right/left us vs. them" mentality, she is unfairly attacking a group of people who can't really be held accountable for their actions, and then shoving that blame on "the left" for trying to stand up for them. Ultimately, its a really intense shift of blame on a tragedy like this. And while I get she is trying to stand up for gun owning straight white Christians, I don't believe her argument is effective at doing that.

The argument "the left" is making is that a lot of people are getting their hands on guns without a background check or having a mental evaluation done. If someone fails a mental evaluation, they should receive the proper mental health services to that they wont commit acts of violence in the future. This does mean stricter gun laws, but not an outright ban, or even limiting the types of firearms available. They just want laws to ensure that people who should not own guns not be able to legally obtain them. But this isn't something Ann seems to understand.