By David Futrelle
Another mass shooting, this time at a Waffle House in Tennessee, leaving four people dead and the suspect still at large. Luckily, an extraordinarily brave customer was able to wrestle the shooter’s AR-15 from him, saving who knows how many lives.
The most infuriating thing about the whole story? The suspect had been arrested before, for trying to access a restricted area in the White House, and all of his guns were confiscated. Authorities ultimately gave them back to the suspect’s father … who gave them right back to his son. Who used one of them in the shooting today.
In other news, Kanye continues his Twitter rampage, Shania Twain comes out as a fan of Trump, and some dude plays Van Halen in a Guitar Center.
https://twitter.com/colbyklaus/status/988148570581762049
https://twitter.com/Rschooley/status/988178332503101440
This is the Waffle House hero, James Shaw Jr. He tackled the shooter and saved so many lives in the process. Thank you James. And thank you TriStar Southern Hills Medical Center for your wonderful doctors and nurses who quickly took care of his injuries. pic.twitter.com/kKORfI24G1
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) April 22, 2018
Hero took the Waffle House shooter down while he attempted to reload. THIS is why magazine limits are important: “I was just trying to get myself out. I saw the opportunity and pretty much took it.” https://t.co/eAw8le6u6p
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) April 22, 2018
The suspected shooter was white; his victims were all people of color, and it seems more than a little likely that this was an act of white supremacist terrorism.
The four victims killed in the Waffle House shooting in Nashville were under the age of 30:
– Taurean C. Sanderlin, 29
– Joe Perez, 20
– Akilah Dasilva, 23
– DeEbony Groves, 21https://t.co/C1dHwaGnmT— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) April 23, 2018
In somewhat lighter news, Kanye doesn’t seem to be too happy that people are dragging him on Twitter for his endorsement of alt-lite weirdo Candace Owens.
the god @EMlNEMOBAMA pic.twitter.com/ctMWYXaEwd
— super 🔮 astronomic (@superastronomic) April 22, 2018
Meanwhile, Shania Twain says that if she were an American citizen she would have voted for Trump, and gives the most ridiculous possible reason one could ever give for doing so: he seems honest.
During an interview with The Guardian, Canadian country singer Shania Twain revealed that she would’ve voted for Donald Trump: "I would have voted for him because, even though he was offensive, he seemed honest." pic.twitter.com/PgLxDQC4UA
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) April 22, 2018
Apparently Chris Cantwell isn’t the only one who sees women as property:
Wishing my beautiful daughter and her date *a violent reminder that I consider her my property pic.twitter.com/RDM7SpXBAE
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) April 22, 2018
One tough kitty:
Do not mess with this cat. pic.twitter.com/MZqjLuLnDx
— Bethany Onsgard (@bhoneyy) April 20, 2018
And a rock god:
I love guitar center pic.twitter.com/i1mC14Cjxj
— critch (@Critch7861) April 22, 2018
Exactly. 🙂
The conservatives and “moderates” who claim to appreciate Trump and others like him because at least he’s honest only appreciate that honesty when it comes to bigoted comments. They like it because it provides them a cover to hold racist and misogynist views, not because it’s honest.
Consider some honest opinions I’ve expressed that have drawn the ire of the same sorts of people that appreciate the honesty of Trump. Or “politically incorrect” comedians and talk show hosts.
The obvious is one is that everyone who voted for Trump is a racist and a misogynist (including POC and women who voted for him) and in fact racism and misogyny are features of the GOP, not a bug and are a big part of the attraction to the party as a whole. That’s a blunt opinion. It’s an honest opinion. It’s an opinion that outrages just about every Republican. They never calmly disagree and explain their reasoning for why I’m wrong. They just get really upset that I said it.
Another big one that’s upsetting particularly for men who value “political incorrectness” is when I state that because of how much street harassment I’ve attracted over the years, I hate it when strange men on the street or public transit approach me to even ask for directions or the time. There will always be a suspicion that the innocent chat or question will turn into harassment. They hit this. Nothing brings out the “poor menz!” crowd than statements like that. Suggest that men shouldn’t talk to a strange woman at all because of street harassment making such a thing highly uncomfortable for most of us and they throw fits. Hey, I’m just being honest. Too bad you’re too much of a snowflake to hear that men can be scary sometimes. Ironically, these are the same types of men who would defend that protective father with a gun trope. It’s okay for men to be protective of women, but when we say we want to be protective of ourselves, oh, they don’t want to even hear that.
Then there’s the simple statement that I’m an atheist/don’t believe in god. I can’t count the number of times that without saying a single disparaging thing about Christianity just the words that I don’t believe it myself are taken as an unconscionable personal attack.
So no, these people do not appreciate honesty. They just want open bigotry to be socially acceptable.
There is also the flip side that this kind of mentality suggests women without a male figure to protect her is ‘fair game’ for disrespectful behaviour from their partners.
I have heard this expressed more explicitly in a heavily patriarchal country than I imagine people do in the US (or UK) but I can’t help feeling like some of the message filters into society
@Valentin The joke is that the dad is protecting his daughter’s virtue with the gun by reminding the boyfriend to stay in line. It is a take on a very old trope about threatening teenage boyfriends (often with guns) to protect the daughter from sexual activity. The trope is not about protectinv the daughter from rape, but about sexual activity regardless of her desire to partake in it.
I don’t think anyone is “outraged” beyond an eye roll and an acknowledgment that it is an offensive and problematic trope that presumes a daughter’s sexuality belongs to her father to guard and is subject to being taken by her boyfriend. Notably, neither party in this trope is concerned with what the girl wants. Obviously the actual people involved don’t necessarily believe these things, but the joke only works if you understand the cultural assumption that father’s want their daughter’s to remain virgins.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3755185
That Schooley tweet is pretty damned obvious, but a good quarter of the replies are people going “the shooter’s father gave him back his guns!”
And the very first reply is someone tagging the subject of the subtweet, because there always has to be someone who does that and that should be a slappable offense.
Anyone else wondering if the reason the Waffle House suspect has vanished seemingly without a trace is because he’s being sheltered by his fellow right wing extremist? Like the guy who bombed the Atlanta Olympics.
I actually stopped watching New Girl because I was so horrified by an episode where Jess’ dad comes visiting. So Jess had sex with her roommate Nick and they’re in love although things are a bit awkward between them and they can’t come straight out and decide to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Then Jess’ dad shows up and there’s this long joke about how Nick can’t let on that he and Jess has got something going on, because her dad goes livid at the thought of someone consensually banging his totally grown-ass daughter. When he does find out that Nick slept with her he’s furious. And I’m like… this is not funny. This is completely fucked up. Like, we’re supposed to think that Jess’ dad is overreacting, sure, but it’s still supposed to be slightly cute at the same time that he “cares” so much about his daughter that he wants to scare men off from having perfectly consensual sex with her. But it’s not cute, it’s solely fucked up.
Oh, and in the same ep the friends also try to sabotage Cece’s wedding because they’ve decided it’s not right for her to marry the man she decided to marry. I didn’t even finish the ep so I don’t know how that ended up but my guess is they were successful and Cece eventually realizes that it was all for the best and all for her own good.
… I totally understand Valentin not seeing the problem, because he’s from a culture that (as far as I’m aware) doesn’t slap that trope on everything from TV shows to t-shirts, but you have no excuse. Side-eyeing the hell out of “OUTRAGED,” too.
We don’t really slap that onto everything in Sweden either, but we consume so much American culture and seem to become more and more influenced by the US for every decade, so I kind of dread that this way of thinking will eventually find its way across the Atlantic too.
Another NRA talking point knocked down on some of those twitter threads: when Shaw wrested the gun away from the shooter, he threw it away from them, staying unarmed. Because police would have shot the “good guy with a gun” because there’s no way they could immediately see whether that first word was true.
I kinda get chills when I realize that, had Shaw not had either the instinct or the presence of mind to do that, and had still been holding the gun, he’d probably have been shot by the cops on sight.
I wish I could remember where I read the quote, but someone I follow regularly (I think it was Fred Clark, of the Slacktivist) brought up how, given the choice, he’d take a well-meaning hypocrite over an honest asshole any day of the week. Because their actions may be similar, but at least a hypocrite is tacitly acknowledging the possibility of an ethos.
I still agree with it, but it does carry a certain caveat, now: there is no difference between a shameless hypocrite and an honest asshole. Which is in response to the whataboutism nonsense that “Democrats and Republicans are the same.”
*facepalms* Oh Shania… I don’t want to launch into “Mutt” Lange and Timmins jokes, but you’re not making it easy, girl…..
@Pie
Look no further than the Ford brothers.
Ugh, fucking Charlie Kirk trying to be the next Ben Shapiro has got to be one of the worst things of 2018. The other day he tried to deliberate misinterpret a quote from Mandela to rail against “big government”. Disgusting as hell, especially considering that TPA is nothing but a front for Neonazis. That douche has been seen hanging around the Proud Boys and other violent MAGA groups.
A real hero, and indeed, his life was at risk not only from the shooter dude but likely from law enforcement making quick assumptions.
But that’s a hero, not someone who is sure, after the event, he would have definitely run into that school
yes I didn’t mean I am not outraged or i don’t think it is wrong – I just didn’t understand which part is about her being a object. now I understand, and know it is a common joke, I think it is something people can feel “outraged” about, and i just feel sorry for this girl that this is her father, and angry he sets this example.
When my daughter was little (like 8 or 9), her father said that he was going to tell any boyfriend she had that he (the father) had a gun and a shovel, so boyfriend better watch out. We had a conversation about how that wasn’t appropriate, but all that did was make him angry.
Luckily we divorced way before she started dating. That wasn’t the only reason, though.
As it is, I am fairly certain none of her boyfriends ever got out of line with her without consent (and if they did, they regretted it). She is the fiercest person I’ve ever met. Some older guy (like in his 30s) once made an inappropriate remark (complete with blowing kisses) to her in the mall when she was 14, and she immediately stopped and lectured him for a good 5-6 minutes (she and her posse following him briefly as he attempted to beat a hasty retreat) about what a pervert he was and how he shouldn’t be doing that to girls.
The Waffle House asshole has been arrested.
fucking good.
Kirk is a textbook mediocre tryhard. Fails to get in to West Point, blames “affirmative action,” gets right-wing sugar daddy Foster Friess to shower him in money to set up his dumb little organization that puts adults in diapers and parades them around campuses.
Ben Shapiro at least graduated from law school, as hideous a man as he is.
And now that the Waffle House shooter has been arrested, the NRA is claiming that James Shaw, Jr. would’ve been able to stop him for good at the scene if only he’d been armed. Because a black man can’t be an unarmed hero, it seems.
Popehat tweeted about the arrest:
https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/988496179179569152
Oh hell, a van plowed into pedestrians on the busiest street in Toronto:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/pedestrians-struck-white-van-1.4631564
3 dead, 10 injured.
I was just there yesterday visiting the Gibson House museum. Chris, this is bad. Fortunately, the perp was apprehended by police.
The latest information on the Toronto incident is that 9 are dead, 16 injured.
On the one hand, I do agree that assholes being outspoken about being assholes makes it easy to avoid people who are, in fact, assholes. And it’s much more horrifying to find that someone who you thought was a decent person turns out to have been an asshole the entire time, and was just bold-faced lying to you because “you’re one of the good ones” or they know that their asshole thoughts/actions/beliefs are frowned upon by society at large.
On the other hand, it feels fucking great to know that these people realize they better keep their fucking bullshit to themselves, lest they face severe backlash. It makes me feel safer and like I’m actually able to live my life.
As for Miss Twain:
So much for “honesty”.
Trump must be LOVING the news about Toronto. It’s giving him the perfect excuse to revive his idiotic “Muslim ban” idea.
@Katamount, tim gueguen:
That’s not just ‘the busiest street in Toronto’, that intersection is the major transit nexus for everybody travelling between Toronto proper and York Region to the north.
It’s also just at the edge of a district of Toronto that has a fairly high percentage of Iranian/Persian residences and businesses, which I kind of hope is a coincidence, but I am worried might not be.