If you’ve been following the trajectory of the National Rifle Association, you’ll notice that they’ve been sunken further into the depths of bizarro world to try to rationalize why there are so many school shootings in the United States.
After the shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas that left 10 people dead and another 10 wounded, incoming NRA President Oliver North made a rather unique case for why these tragedies keep happening.
“The disease in this case isn’t the Second Amendment,” North told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” “The disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence. They have been drugged in many cases.”
He continued. “Nearly all of these perpetrators are male and they are young teenagers in most cases. And they have come through a culture where violence is commonplace. All you need to do is turn on the TV, go to the movies. If you look at what has happened to the young people, many of these young boys have been on Ritalin since they were in kindergarten.”
North at least admitted he’s not a doctor, since a real doctor probably would not grossly generalize an entire group of people in the way he did. According to a 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dataset, an estimated 6.1 million children and adolescents have been diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, and boys are three times as likely to be diagnosed as girls. So, at least 4.5 million boys in the United States have been diagnosed with ADHD and take some form of medication, whether it be Ritalin or Adderall. Obviously, we don’t have around 4.5 million young boys shooting up schools.
As for North’s assertion that we live in violent culture citing television and movies, it’s important to note that the same shows and films are viewed all around the world, not just in the United States. Homicides by firearm (not just in schools) in our country are significantly higher than most other developed countries.
Rather than sticking to a script and promoting improved school safety – like North’s promotion of National School Shield to harden soft targets – or calling out law enforcement when they fail to do their job, the NRA consistently goes off half-cocked, even when the motivations of the shooter are still unclear.
A more effective defense of the Second Amendment would at least involve holding off on the finger-pointing until all the facts are known. All this does in the end is antagonize the persuadable and prevent a broader or smarter conversation about reducing school shootings.
