Tuesday, December 18, 2012

And it Shall be Known as "The McArdle Method"




Media Matters reports on what would have been the odds-on favorite to dominate either the "Genius Libertarian Breakthrough Thinking" category at "The Sammies" if "The Sammies" still existed...

...or the "Stupidest Fucking Idea of the Year" category at any award ceremony but "The Sammies":
...
McArdle's essay on how to prevent mass shootings in the wake of the tragedy in Newton, Connecticut, begins with a libertarian defense of congressional inaction on gun issues, even sneering that it is "easy and satisfying to be for 'gun control' in the abstract, but we cannot pass gun control, in the abstract." You might well have seen most of this essay after any mass shooting in recent decades.

McArdle is so resigned to any gun laws failing to prevent gun violence that she concludes that people should be encouraged to "gang rush" shooters rather than hide: 
I'd also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once.  Would it work?  Would people do it?  I have no idea; all I can say is that both these things would be more effective than banning rifles with pistol grips.

This is what a zombie ideology looks like just before it keels over from starvation and begins gnawing the dirt..  

15 comments:

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

This is what a zombie ideology looks like

Hey now.

Habitat Vic said...

McArdle. Christ almighty, what an idiot. Started blogging right after 9/11 as "Jane Galt." I suppose McArdle would also have us teach the 6-year old children to scream "Wolverine!" or maybe "Reagan!" as they get blown to bits trying to gang rush heavily armed attackers.

Finally, this from her fellow U of Chicago alumni.

- In 2012, David Brooks called McArdle one of the most influential bloggers on the right, writing that she is among those who "start from broadly libertarian premises but do not apply them in a doctrinaire way." 'Nuff said.

Lit3Bolt said...

Will McArdle suffer at all for suggesting the children of Newtown are cowardly because they didn't rush their killer?

Will she suffer the same way liberals suffered for suggesting that the Iraq War was being waged for crass domestic political gain?

Will Andrew Sullivan call Megan a decadent "fifth column" on her coastal enclave that she enjoys, surrounded by liberals and the fruits of liberal governing?

Methinks not.

prof_fate said...

That's not merely refined and triple-distilled, industrial strength stoopid, but stoopid so inconceivably dense it ought to sink of its own weight to the core of the planet.

While we're at it, we should also replace all those safety scissors with the old pointy kind, and teach the kiddies to hurl them ninja-style. Having one of those things sticking out of his eyeball is just bound to slow your shooter down a bit.

And then you can easily take him in a rush!

Grung_e_Gene said...

Call it the Somme Method or Pickett's Charge and it can be incorporated into history class.

marindenver said...

"all I can say is that both these things would be more effective than banning rifles with pistol grips."

So after having rambled on for 4,000 words more or less just randomly formulating solutions that she then states are not solutions at all, she realizes that she needs to conclude with "an idea". And this utterly stupid, depraved, embicilec, asinine atrocity is it? Why don't we just use children as battering rams too in hostage situations? Think of the uses we could make of them if only they were properly drilled to commit mass suicide when needed.

Can someone start a petition to get her fired and banned from the Intertoobs for life?

bluicebank said...

"... even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once."

Better yet, a ton of bricks above every shooter. No, wait. Trap doors in all schools! Or dingos, penned, only to be released at the most dire need.

The possibilities are endless.

MsFortune said...

Next wignut idea - arm kindergartners!

We can't trust the union thugs / teachers to protect our kids so let's send them to school packing!

Anonymous said...

I didn't think through the ultimate absurdity of McArdle's post until I read yours, and that is that what McArdle is suggesting is something that she herself would never do, i.e. in a life or death situation, put the common good over her own. Her own philosophy would demand that, unless the shooter was aiming at Dagny Taggart, even John Galt would run away and try to save his own precious hide.

Fiddlin Bill said...

Want your 6 year old to be in the front of that charge?

Anonymous said...

Lead the way, Megan!
I'll be running just behind
You in the "bum rush."

evodevo said...

Yeah, that worked out well at the Battle of Sommes, WWI, if I recall. Only 50k Brits killed, or so.....

rhwombat said...

Oi! bluicebank! Leave our dingoes alone!

Bukko Boomeranger said...

Or dingos, penned, only to be released at the most dire need.

No, you fool! Dingos eat BABIES, not shooters!

DonP said...

And yet there is Megan, noon time on MSNBC, the liberal network, leaving a flaming bag of pooh on my doorstep.

Never any consequences....