Fox News’ George Will apparently thinks it’s better to be shot and killed in America than to try and do something to stop gun violence.
Fox News Sunday held a panel discussion about the awful murder of WDBJ reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward and Parker’s father’s new crusade to enact new gun legislation.
Will seemed disgusted that anybody would even try to address the issue of gun violence. Plus, you know, the gays and the blacks…
WILL: Well, when these horrific events occur, there’s an irresistible itch to commit sociology, to find some explanation, causal link in some social prompting. This gentleman, this man was a gay African-American, who nevertheless was hired, in spite of what he took to be insuperable handicaps, and he does seem to have bought into the grievance culture of our times, feeling prickly and set upon at all times by all people.
That said, it seems to me we all should step before explaining these in terms of some defect in the society or some new social media culture. Because what that commits us to is the belief that every evil in the world can be changed by fiddling with the society, by rearranging it, by some law or regulation or something else. There are times when you just have to throw up your hands and say there’s evil in the world, always has been, always will be.
But as Sheryl Gay Stolberg, of the New York Times, told the panel, there are some things that can be done.
STOLBERG: First of all, 33,000 Americans die every year of gunshot wounds. That’s accidents, suicides, and also homicides. A Harvard researcher has estimated that our firearm homicide rate in the U.S. is seven times that of Canada. So people like Andy Parker and Governor McAuliffe are saying, even if there are some small things that we can do to reduce that number, we should do them. So No. 1, universal background checks. There are still guns sold in this country, private sales, where there are no background checks conducted.
…(WDBJ shooter) Vester Flanagan bought his gun legally, passed a background check, it is true. Here’s something else that advocates are talking about. In California, there is a new law called a gun violence restraining order. It’s kind of like a domestic violence restraining order, where families of people who are mentally unstable or who fear that their loved ones may come into possession of guns and do harm with them, can go to a court and request a restraining order for 21 days. It can be extended up to a year. And advocates are starting to talk about, why not put something like this into place so at least if family members recognize or loved ones recognize that their—people they know are unstable, they can try to do something to prevent it?
…Also, people are talking about smart guns. Smart—we have smartphones that can be tracked, why not smart guns that can be tracked the same way if your iPhone is lost. So there are steps that could be taken, might not have prevented this particular instance, but advocates say they would reduce gun violence.
As Fox often does when it presents opinions that stray from its orthodoxy, Stolberg was sandwiched between other panelists with opinions that didn't. Will went first and another conservative, Michael Needham, closed the discussion by shrugging his shoulders, too. He said, “There are some things as George acknowledged, as George said, that are just evil, that don’t have any other explanation, and the only thing you can do in those situations, is you can come together as a society, you can support each other, you can help each other try to heal.”
That is, unless you’re killed by an undocumented immigrant. Then Fox will not just support new legislation but actively advocate for it.
Watch Will’s shocking unconcern below, from the August 30 Fox News Sunday, via Raw Story.
The only interesting thing here is establishment Republican guy George seemly hits all the standard right-wing talking points smearing blacks and gays. Yet the dolt unintentionally screws up by broadly wallpapering violent incidents like this dismissing any suggestion it’s “some defect in the society.” Hmmm… kind of deflates Fox News’ narrative that singles out police being killed as an excuse to trash #BlackLivesMatter. Like Tucker Carlson is doing on “Fox And Friends” as I type this – no kidding.
Yeah, the same “Fox And Friends” chuckle-heads who days earlier were having a massive diaper fill only us liberals are exploiting this murder. ;^)