The Media and Politicians Weigh In
Alas, that (Part I) wasn’t my topic for the day. Like the media mob, I’m on to the next crisis in our streets, although at the time of my writing, they have disturbingly moved on to yet another. And by now, you must realize that there will be another after that. This time, police in Columbus, Ohio were called to break up an attack by a knife-wielding assailant in which all the participants, except the cop, were “people of color”. I’m getting tired of that. They were actually Black which is technically defined as the absence of color, but the party of science is never bothered by these inconvenient truths. Furthermore this incessant focus on color makes is turning me into a person of color, as my blood pressure rises and I become beet red. But I digress, police arrived to a suburban melee, a chaotic scene in a seemingly cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood where less than 20 seconds after the cops appeared on the scene, a 16 year-old female, appearing completely oblivious to the presence of law enforcement, pushed another young woman up against a car and wound up to plunge a knife into her chest. The video has gone viral; you’ve all seen it. So what do you do if you’re the cop? Any verbal warning will result in a stabbing. Attempt to physically intervene? Nope, too far away. How about the Hollywood option: shoot the knife out of her hand or perhaps shoot her in the leg? Sure, Dirty Harry, that will work. Split-second decision. What do you do? Well, we all know what did happen: the cop shot the attacker, killed her, and saved the victim. Cue the racial outrage.
Within hours, the Columbus Mayor declared the attacker “a child of this community”. Ohio State students gathered to protest, chanting “Black Lives Matter” and the preposterous “Hands up, don’t Shoot” slogan, a reference to the Ferguson shooting in a media narrative that never happened. They chanted Ma’Khia Bryants name. You know, honoring the attacker who, had the cop not intervened, would have been a murderer. But the most preposterous reaction of all was that of the media pundits who, despite having no training in law enforcement and no working knowledge of firearms, all chose to armchair quarterback the incident. Joy Reid, the MSNBC talk show host who the Hollywood Reporter describes as being “at the forefront of cable-news conversations”, billed by her network as sharing the news “with experience on race, justice, and culture”, weighed in on the incident with her usual level of ignorance and racial animosity. “I remember fights in high school where a kid brought a penknife or something to school and teachers were able to defuse that and they didn’t have guns”. Really? Recall, Ms. Reid was raised in Brooklyn and Denver, was Harvard educated with a degree in film studies whose mother was a college professor, her father an engineer. Exactly how many knife fights did she witness in her rough and tumble upbringing? She also claimed “it’s very difficult to trust cops” this coming from someone who claimed hackers traveled back in time to plant homophobic slurs on her blog before she became a media darling. Sure, you’re credible. Always available for elevating the definition of obnoxious, The View co-host and advertisement for all things the rest of America hates about New Yorkers, Joy Behar wasted no time in displaying her ignorance. She claimed the police had the option to “de-escalate” the attack before resorting to using “deadly force”. Again, using her years of experience in policing and firearms training, she suggested the following: “Shoot the gun in the air, warning, tase a person, shoot them in the leg, shoot them in the behind.” Hilarious. And this coming after she watched the bodycam video. HBO’s Bill Maher sparred with theGrio’s April Ryan over the Chauvin verdict when the conversation turned to the Columbus shooting. Maher, certainly no friend of the conservative right, posed the obvious question: “This was a Black girl who was about to stab another Black girl. Black Lives Matter….which one? Ryan retorted: “He could have saved her. He could’ve shot her in the leg. He could have de-escalated in a different way. “ After his brief lucid interlude into the obvious, Maher returned to his leftist perch and criticized the police as “terrible marksmen”, suggesting that they spend more time at the range before they use their guns again. All this based undoubtedly on their years of experience in the field. And at the pantheon of absurdity, Defund the Police Activist Bree Newsome tweeted “Teenagers have been having fights including fights with knives for eons. We do not need police to address these situations by showing up to the scene and using a weapon against one of the teenagers. Ya’ll need help.” Come on, just let them fight. With knives. What’s the worst that could happen? Valerie Jarrett, she of the Obama administration, chimed in by stating “Bryant was killed because a police officer immediately decided to shoot her multiple times in order to break up a knife fight”. Just a knife fight. Okay, Val. But perhaps all of this insanity was set in motion by President Biden, widely known for his tough-guy up-bringing on the mean streets of Scranton, who immediately proclaimed the shooting as being racially motivated before he even saw the video. Recall, he offered his expertise after the Ferguson shooting: “Instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person coming at ‘em with a knife or something, shoot ‘em in the leg instead of the heart” Genius, why didn’t I think of that? Of course, Biden is well known for his sage advice on self-defense with a firearm. When arguing against the necessity of owning an AR-15 rifle he once opined “if you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.” Seriously? While riffing on a similar theme he claims to have told his wife “Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, walk out and put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house”. I’m sure petite Jill Biden is thoroughly competent in managing a 12-gauge shotgun and fortunately, being a doctor, she would be more than qualified to treat the shoulder bruise she would suffer afterwards. Oh right, wrong doctor. Inconveniently, Wilmington, Delaware police responded to Biden’s suggestions by issuing the clarification that residents are not allowed to wantonly shoot trespassers nor is it legal to discharge firearms unless you are in fear for your life. But as we recently became aware, the Biden family may be blissfully unaware of the law as it relates to firearms. Hunter Biden apparently lied on his application to purchase a handgun on a question regarding drug use, a girlfriend disposed of the firearm in a dumpster, and then he was unable to find it when he returned to retrieve it. Naturally, this minor felony infraction came to the attention of the Secret Service who unlawfully attempted to confiscate the Federal Firearms License holder’s records, only to be rebuffed. Curiously, the BATFE arrived on the scene that same day and were able to “secure” the records of the transaction. Oh, those Biden family hijinks.
So thus far, we have established that the media is far more interested in advancing a racially charged agenda than they are in facts, and they are certainly not your go-to source for firearms training. It is strangely hypocritical that they enthusiastically support defunding the police, yet they are also interested in more training; specifically marksmanship as it relates to the ability to target the legs and buttocks of assailants. But perhaps the party of science should spend a little more time reviewing the data on police shootings, the ability to function under stress, and why training has evolved the way it has.
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