Don's Tuesday Column

      THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   4/06/2021

         Targeting the wrong issues, people

“Targeting” could be a term loaded with “triggering” imagery; we’re advised to avoid firearms-related terms: crosshairs, shootout, etc. Such rules carry little weight with “normals”: conservatives, libertarians and centrist Democrats whose lives don’t revolve around the fever-swamp of progressivism at cable and network sources, leftist think tanks/web sites and higher ed, self-styled social justice trend-setters.

It seems fairly reliable for the leftist/media/Democrat cabal to punch their pre-recorded reactions to gun violence, particularly “mass shootings.” By the time you read this, recent killings may have found a “memory hole,” as when continued obsession fails to conform to a convenient narrative: angry white guy whose “assault weapon” up and killed folks he hated.

An accurate overview could help those not driven by hate for guns and guys (and women) who use them for hunting and self-defense. It’s well said that guns don’t kill, people do. Those people run the racial and ideological gamut, using fists, blunt objects, knives and other imaginative means to act out a wide range of motives (fists and knives are used much more than rifles).

Rates of homicide follow an urban/rural divide; urban majority/minority victims of Black criminals predominate. Rural areas near Canada have crime and murder rates similar to rural-dwellers across the border, even as the American cities—Minneapolis and Milwaukee, for instance—record high levels of violence.

In “The Real Common Trait Behind the Mass Shooting in Boulder…Is Something You Probably Already Know,” by Matt Vespa (townhall.com, 3/23), you can read about an examination of 30 years of mass shootings by Mother Jones (of all places). While their study ended with the Colorado movie theater shooting of 2012, they analyzed 62 shootings and wrote:

“Mass shootings generate sensational media coverage, yet most media have failed to connect the dots with regard to mental health. It is a crucial factor in these events, as our in-depth investigation into mass shootings at Mother Jones shows…

“Nearly 80 percent of the perpetrators in these 62 cases obtained their weapons legally. Acute paranoia, delusions, and depression were rampant among them, with at least 36 of the killers committing suicide on or near the scene. Seven others died in police shootouts they had little hope of surviving (a.k.a. ‘suicide by cop’). And…at least 38 of them displayed signs of possible mental health problems prior to the killings.”

The left prefers to ignore mental health, as well as the fact that prevention involves some involuntary prior restraint, such as not being permitted to purchase or possess firearms. Responsible, reasonable owners and “gun rights” groups are not opposed, as long as rights are protected from abuse by law enforcement, courts and ill-intentioned third parties.

It’s easy to see why the 3 recent shootings aren’t “firing up” the anti-gunners. A young, white guy, clearly acting on inner sexual demons and delusions, killed mostly Asian masseuses, with no overt additional motives.

The killer of 10 (including a cop) in a Colorado grocery store was to be the typical “angry, white man” until he was identified as 21-year-old Ahmad Al Issa, a Syrian Muslim “refugee” whose Facebook page showed him 1) lamenting that President Trump won the 2016 election “because of racism,” 2) deeply devout, posting Islamic prayers, and 3) accusing Americans of being “Islamophobic.” His mental issues were known to family and he was known to the F.B.I, being linked to another individual investigated by the bureau. Gun bought legally.

While neither a shooter nor a mass killer, William Evans, a young Black man, rammed his car into 2 Capitol Hill police officers—one of whom died—and then jumped out with a large knife to continue his attack, wounding another officer before being shot dead, thankfully.

He said that “(Louis) Farrakhan’s teaching had been a guiding path for him, calling the extremist leader ‘My spiritual father’ and saying despite his path being thwarted, ‘Allah has chosen me for other things.’” Speeches by Farrakhan and (Nation of Islam leader) Elijah Muhammad were posted by Green. The bottom line is that Farrakhan was likely as much an inspiration to Green as Bernie Sanders was to James Hodgkinson, who tried to slaughter Republican House members at a Virginia baseball field in 2017.

Other truthful takes: Military “stand downs” for “training” re: extremism are leftist “reeducation,” as you can read about in Tyler O’Neil’s “USMC ‘Extremism’ Training Follows the SPLC Playbook to Demonize Conservatives,” (3/30, pjmedia.com).

“Beyond Jim Crow: Leftists Circle Back To Slavery,” by Darleen Click, 3/31, victorygirlsblog.com), displays a graphic from the National Museum of African American History & Culture. Signs of “Whiteness & White Culture” include “Rugged Individualism, nuclear family, emphasis on Scientific Method, Protestant Work Ethic, Justice/English common law, Competition/action orientation, and being polite—using proper grammar. How is that not using so-called “white racial characteristics” to disparage white people?

“An Oregon Department of Education newsletter from February promoted an online course designed to “dismantle” instances of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom.”  One example of “white supremacy” highlighted by the course was “the concept of mathematics being purely objective,” an idea which the resource stated is “is unequivocally false." Campusreform.org’s Wyatt Eichholz wrote “Profs help push program that claims math is 'racist' because it requires a ‘right answer.’” The program, “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,” seeks to “dismantle…white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom.”

“The concept of mathematics being purely objective,” is an idea which the resource stated “is unequivocally false (and) white supremacy culture.” What lunacy. You won’t eliminate racial obsession by obsessing about race—such reverse discrimination is no better than traditional racism. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that “A doctrine of black supremacy is as dangerous as a doctrine of white supremacy.”