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The quote of the day is presented by Guns.com

If, after decades of speechmaking about hunting and tradition and rights, Republicans roll over because they happen to have someone in the White House who doesn’t actually care much about those things, it’ll be the most perfect encapsulation of the party’s ideological hollowness since George W. Bush pushed through a massive health care entitlement, Medicare Part D.

The notion that the correct response to comparatively rare mass shootings is to rescind the constitutional rights of tens of millions of people who have sought mental health treatment has a particularly strong allure for the bipartisan “do something” crowd, perhaps because it perfectly fits the “do something to someone else” mold.

The proposed restrictions on online speech are in many ways the most worrisome. The desire to hold big tech accountable for mass shootings is politically potent: Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter have already made plenty of enemies, and doing this particular something would be a great way to satisfy quite a few constituencies that are baying for their blood.

The rise of the free internet has coincided with the greatest sustained arc of increasing peace and prosperity in human history. But the forces for doingsomething are strong, so in the days after the shootings, everyone from Fox’s Tucker Carlson to The New York Times called for restrictions on online speech and other regulations of the internet.

Katherine Mangu-Ward in Don’t Just Do Something

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53 COMMENTS

  1. In a way, the phrase “Do something” seems to advocate for reactivity rather than planned, rational, well-researched action. “Do something” seems to say “It does not matter if that which you do is effective or if it creates harm, we just need to see something we like happen”.

    It takes courage to not act hastily, reactively. It takes courage to say “No, let’s hold, let’s research, let’s plan. Let’s NOT do anything until we understand the problem”.

    So, my position is “Don’t just do something, stand there (and think).”

  2. We will never be able to counter this the way we are now going. Leftists are *fueled* by emotion, and nothing pushes that button better than a perceived emergency.

    Have you noticed that *everything* is a crisis with them? They do that because it *works* on the weak-minded and easily led. Which pretty much defines who votes for the political left…

    • Let’s DO SOMETHING that has been proven to work for 200+ years in our country.

      Let’s return the 10 Commandments and God back to the classroom with the central thesis that your actions will be judged in the afterlife with possible dire circumstances.

      This is also INTERSECTIONAL with the fact that most mentally handicapped people understand the concept of good and evil.

      Use the Left’s beliefs against them

  3. Everyone’s Happy to DO SOMETHING After a Shooting, As Long As It’s Done to Someone Else

    Exactly! Dan’s got it!

    And for gun grabbers who don’t own or want to own guns anyways – they see it as not their fault or their problem – it’s those gun owners over there.

    • And of course the “Something”, is somebody else’s responsibility to do. The times I was shot at ( and I don’t necessarily mean in combat in some far off land), I took it upon myself to ‘Do Something’. These whiners ought to try that, instead of just making mouth noises.

  4. I don’t know why they bother! We don’t need to worry about gun violence. We are all going to die in 11 years from climate change remember????!

    • “We are all going to die in 11 years from climate change remember????!”

      No, they are, because that’s what they believe, and the next 11yrs are going to roll by at a snails pace…

    • You missed their point. We don’t all die in 11 years as long as we elect the crazy democrats to save us. That’s why they say that, among many other crazy things. You’re probably a Nazi for making fun of them.

  5. “The rise of the free internet has coincided with the greatest sustained arc of increasing peace and prosperity in human history.”

    I agree with a lot in this article but not this. The past few decades of lack of big wars really has very little to do with the internet. The great powers haven’t engaged in direct war since WW2 because of the advent of nuclear weapons, and prosperity since then has been driven by those WW2 economic booms, Cold War, space race, economic competition, and capitalism. In modern times, the internet has even been an avenue of conflict such as during the Arab “spring” and subsequent ISIS conflict. In reality it merely opened up another domain of war, information/propaganda war and cyber war.

    However, I completely agree that the coming restricted free speech laws on the internet are quite concerning. Even now, it seems to be increasingly dangerous to post your true political stances in any online forum. Anything that doesn’t explicitly align with leftist newthink can easily be used for a swatting, no knock raid, red flag order, media harassment, or attack from cowardly Antifa terrorists. If new laws are created restricting online speech, I imagine it only benefit the lefts existing domination of media.

    • “The great powers haven’t engaged in direct war since WW2 because of the advent of nuclear weapons”

      Yep!

      The author isn’t saying anything especially enlightening or smart. How much do these people get paid?

        • Nope, not me, but I call B.S. on your phony surprise over it. You told me a couple of months ago that you sometimes use a lower case “p” because of the small buttons on your phone, so don’t try to make us all think you’re being victimized by imposters like Vlad is.

          We know you’re upset that Vlad gets all the troll attention around here, but trying to copy his multi-persona method is really sad.

          What are we going to see next, “Pg2’s Dad” making comments?

        • PG2 I do not play childish games. If I want to call some one out I do it like a man on a man to man basis. I do not copy names to try and stab people in the back. You have a right to your opinion according to the 1st Amendment and copying some ones name is an attempt to destroy your 1st Amendment Rights. Again I do not play those kind of childish games. The little teenage worm that is using my name (without the avatar of course) is an example of a child playing on the internet. He uses my name and most of the time I do not even bother to read his childish rants because there is nothing in them except name calling and plagiarism. Those are the tactics of a coward and a child not a man. If you pay attention to speech patterns you will eventually figure out who is doing it. They always expose themselves as to who they really are by their posts.

        • The best thing about this forum is that the majority of the comments are about as real as the WWF. Very few un-choreographed comments, conversations here.

        • I agree with myself 69 per cent I am a manly man I am so manly you would not believe how manly I am. I am to manly to hide behind a fake name or cry like a little girl when someone infringes on my rights by copying my fake name and making fun of me. Plus when I make fun of another commenters name I am being manly and witty and sophisticated not childish. And when I copy and paste I am not plagiarizing other peoples work I am being manly and getting paid.

  6. “everyone from Fox’s Tucker Carlson to The New York Times called for restrictions on online speech”

    You don’t just lob these accusations out there without a reference to back it up. Most authors provide a link these days to prove their point. I went to the source article and I don’t see a link. It doesn’t mean the author is wrong, but how can we take them seriously if they don’t prove what they’re saying?

    Then there’s this gem: “The problem of man-made climate change is real…” How is man-made climate change real or a problem? Settled science right? Saying something is settled science is the most unscientific thing you could say. They say that to shut down debate. The author may have some valid point somewhere, but there’s too much nonsense in this article to take them seriously.

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration just released the unadjusted temperature data they’ve been collecting since 2005. This is important to note because the climate alarmist “scientists” have been adjusting temperatures to always fit a warming trend. What did these unadjusted temperature stations show? Zero warming since 2005. “Settled science” is antiscience.

    https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2019/08/23/climate_alarmists_foiled_no_us_warming_since_2005_110470.html

    • The other problem with this man made global warming info is that the US is expected to make even more changes, while the up and coming industrial powers are using technology that would never get off the drawing board in the US at any time in the last 50 years. They are free to build(and use) new coal fired plants that use 50 year old tech, polluting our world, but we can not build the newer design of so-called clean coal plants, because they are so dirty to our world.
      All of this is a pollution trading scheme, like refineries buying up old dry cleaning plants and shutting them down for good points(while not doing anything to clean up the polluting units in the refinery).
      Bait and switch clean up points that mean nothing.

      • People are lined up, ready to make billions off of the climate scare. John Podesta, a longtime left wing political insider and Hillary’s campaign chairman, had to close his green energy company after Hillary lost. Investors took their losses and walked away since there wouldn’t be a favorable government to prop up his company. The climate “crisis” is a scam for some people to gain power, and for some to profit, including the “scientists” that are interested in perpetuating their existence.

      • RT66Paul said: “All of this is a pollution trading scheme, like refineries buying up old dry cleaning plants and shutting them down for good points(while not doing anything to clean up the polluting units in the refinery).
        Bait and switch clean up points that mean nothing.”

        You speak in ignorance of the oil industry. There are thousands of rules and regulations (state and federal) the oil industry in general and refineries in particular must abide by. They have spent billions of dollars making changes to meet pollution standards and they continue to do so.

        Don’t fall for the left narrative that “fossil fuels are bad so we must eliminate them.” They make our life style possible.

        • That is precisely the point the worlds life style is now no longer possible. Fossil fuels although they have cut back in admissions have not cut back enough because they either cannot do so because of cost or because the technology is not even there to get the pollution to the point that it is not a danger to society. Europe realized this fact well over a decade ago and went full speed on a green energy plan and gradually year by year put more and more of the plan into full operation while we still do not even have a plan nor do the greed mongers in industry even want one. They know they will be dead by the time pollution destroys everyone so they do not care not even for their children’s own future.

        • “Europe realized this fact well over a decade ago and went full speed on a green energy plan”

          Yet the U.S.A. leads every country in the world in reducing CO2. It isn’t even close.

        • I agree with myself 666 per cent. Trust me I am a real expert on climate change because I took some classes at a real university and one of my drinking buddies was a Climate Studies major so I know all the true facts. Plus there were climate change posters all over the campus and they taught me even more about how we are all going to die in 11 years.

      • Good point. Interesting that some ‘under developed’ nations have state of the art fiber optic networks in the cities, but cannot afford filters on their smokestacks.

  7. Big tech ALREADY restricts free speech-of conservative’s and Christians! It’s the wildwest anything goes unless you have “approved” speech. Duh TTAG…

  8. Plenty of people are willing to sell out your rights in order to facilitate their virtue signalling and grasp further at power.

  9. I wish the Libertarian hypocrite pigs would make up their minds. PewDie Pie, Alex Jones, various gun channels (Hickok45) and websites. They had no problem last year when these and others were taken off the air because whiners did not like what was being said.

  10. Libertarians never wanted these people to be taken off the air or internet – Liberals did.

    Big difference. While I do not swallow any party’s line completely, I am proud to say I lean towards the American Libertarian Party in my views(definately NOT in the open borders area)

    • Please post a Link that proves the Libertarians support landowners with AR15s protecting their property against illegal alien invaders.

  11. ” DO SOMETHING ! ” Ok let’s repeal all gun control laws back to the original Second Amendment writing, and pass a law clarifying the right to carry IS a right guaranteed by the second amendment, whether open or concealed. Any politician trying to change or challenge that right would be removed for violating their oath.

  12. I hear about all kinds of “somethings’ but nothing about increasing penalties for those who supply weapons to prohibited persons. Those penalties should be doubled with no plea bargaining or early release AND also be charged with any crime the recipient commits with that sentence to be severed consecutively of the supplying charge. Double felon in possession and life if committed upon release. And notifying LEOS regarding purchase attempts by prohibited persons and maybe prosecute them in federal court since that crime is federal. And criminal penalties for not entering criminal records into the federal check system. UNIVERSAL checks would mean DOUBLE SQUAT if a criminal record is omitted!!!!!

    • The problem with that approach is with who get’s to define who is a “prohibited person”, and why is that person prohibited. Red flag laws greatly expand that population of potential “prohibited people” by allowing (literally) everyone and their distant cousins to make that determination. How about the chatter of using social media/forum posts to id “potential threats”?

      You sure you want to go there? Hmmm? Or are you just frustrated that other people aren’t “doing something” to keep your butt safe?

  14. “Do something” always conjures images of the useless female victim trope in movies. Frozen in hysteria shouting pointlessly as her fate and her rescuer race to see who will fulfill their role first.

    Those people should not listened to. More often than not they are responsible either directly or indirectly for what is about to befall them.

  15. Banning some speech is only common sense and it has zero to do with 1st Amendment Rights. Just as you are not allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater because it leads to needless injuries and deaths nor should you be able to post racist and threatening remarks as well as outright falsehoods during an election.

    I think France has the right idea as they beat Putin at his own game. France bans any political speech on their internet during their elections. I cannot recall just now when the cut off date for political speech is during their elections but it pissed Putin off immensely as he was beaten at his own nefarious game. We on the other hand encourage Putin and his closest ally Moscow Mitch McConnell is doing everything in his power so Putin can once again make a mockery and a complete circus out of our next election. And just remember even if you cheer Moscow Mitch because you are a Republican remember what goes around comes around and other countries that are against Trump can do the same thing only for the Democrats. Not that I want either party doing this but this is what the situation is right now. Moscow Mitch has refused to fund more secure election machines as he is giving Putin the green light to help Trump out all he can. This is what are country has come to. Its the fall of Rome all over again, graft , blind greed and corruption rule and the American people have lost all control of their own country.

    • Since France doesn’t ban political speech by politicians during the same time, I have a problem with that. Are they better than their citizens? I submit that any politician is someone who should have fewer rights, not more.

      Oh, if you like France so much, go there. You won’t be missed.

    • Vlad you’re pulling out the oldest, most tired trope in the book.
      You are not prohibited from yelling fire in a crowded theater. What if there is an actual fire? You are simply held accountable for your actions if they end up causing unnecessary panic and injury.
      That is all we want in regards gun laws. Hold the actual criminals accountable and stop criminalizing the law abiding.
      Our current ban everything approach to gun laws is the equivalent of having the usher ballgag you before you are seated. Just in case.

    • OMG! I agree with myself again the American people have lost all control over there country but all we have to do to fix it is erect the Hairy Kameltow in 2020. With a Socialist Dictatorship in place America can be just like Venezuela and Cuba where the people are in complet control of there country as long as they sit quietly in there homes and starve.

  17. Are ur rights worth a few clicks?

    Here is a link every decent American can use to send a message so easy with a few clicks and a prewritten letter(if needed) to all GOP Senators & Trump & use ur voice to stop this illegal gun control! This week the threat is real and the anti-gun house will likely pass several gun control bills and scream the sky is falling! They will call Trump and the Senate all kinds of names if they don’t pass their commie like gun control!

    https://gunowners.org/alert082119/

    • They have the same kind of alert tool to send a message to all the Republican members of the House on the site. If they keep hearing about how we view gun control, they are less likely to vote for it.

  18. “DO SOMETHING” usually means “do something wrong.” Knee jerk reactions are rarely as effective as a well-reasoned and researched response. The “something” doesn’t address the issue, and it’s pretty much an opportunity to push through an unrelated wish list when it comes to anti-2A. Few of their wishes would have any effect on the shootings that are generating the supposed immediacy of action. OTOH, many poorly thought out actions aren’t legal and can’t withstand a court challenge.

  19. Here is an idea for “Do Something!”
    All government federal/state/local must accept the Second Amendment as the law of the land and any other law/regulation is unconstitutional and therefore null and void.
    So ALL Americans can carry whatever wherever.
    If citizens/business owners will not allow people to be armed on their premises, they must accept responsibility for any attacks to the people or there property.

  20. Here’s a “do something”:
    Many of the shooters have been “incel,” whether they’ve declared themselves or not. “Incel” is a web movement of “involuntarily celibate,” typically young men. Let’s get them laid.

    Step 1: Legalize prostitution. There are women out there who will sleep with these losers for enough cash, or at least engage in some sexual acts. They might even be able to tutor them in how to behave around a lady and get rid of the involuntarily part. Legalization involves medical checkups, condom use, locations in zoned areas, no pimps leveraging them with drugs or violence, no street walkers, etc. I use the word “women,” but in fairness to different tastes, there can be gay prostitutes, transgender, or whatever gets someone excited.

    Step 2: Since these women need to be paid, accept firearms as payment. Worthwhile ones can be resold though FFLs. Worthless ones can be subsidized by governments, but a sane amount less than the value of the gun.

    This will remove the motivation to commit some of these shootings, and it may remove some of the tools that they might use. Bonus benefits are removal of crimes and exploitation associated with sex workers.

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