Cruel

He didn't use "gang violence" as short hand for "black violence." That wouldn't make sense in the context of mass shootings. He said “Counting or not counting gang violence?” more as a shorthand for "Are we counting criminals killing each other?" Whether it's hispanic, white, or black gangs isn't very relevant.

Gangs contribute to the majority of designated "mass shootings," and are often excluded from conversations that want to focus on innocent victims of mass shooting as opposed to cases of criminals killing each other. After all, if all mass shootings were just gangsters shooting each other, people wouldn't care nearly as much as they do now. They care about the mass shootings that don't involve gangs.

EDIT: Seems like many sources explicitly exclude gang violence in their stats. So my statement may be incorrect that gangs contribute to "designated" mass shootings as they are not designation such by many sources.

Using that logic, everyone who supports cops or the military using guns is a supporter of gun violence, and anyone who supports physical self-defense is a supporter of violence. Makes the notion of "supporting violence" politically pointless.

He was willing to accept violent gun deaths in support of his 2a position.

Yeah. Everything has a trade-off. I don't want swimming pools outlawed, so I have to accept that ~350 toddlers are going to drown accidentally in pools every year. That does NOT mean I support toddlers drowning, I just tolerate it as a cost. It's not like Kirk wanted deaths from gun violence.

People are likely projecting their own insincerity. They assume people have political positions strictly because it benefits them, typically because that's the only reason they themselves take a political position. The concept of having principles is absolutely foreign.

"That's racist."

"It may involve a race, but it's not racist."

"That's why you said it involved that race!"

Bizarre logic.

Offensive was the wrong word. I meant that it's not racist. It's unhealthy that one would be offended by acknowledging the existence of gang violence.

I understand that. I'm saying that there is no hidden meaning. Gang violence is understood on its face by everyone.

I mean, most gang activity comes from young black men, but that does not mean it's racist to talk about it. I think talking about whether to include or exclude "gang violence" from a conversation about mass shootings is appropriate and not offensive in the slightest.

How do you know the 3 students shot weren't also assholes?