I’m going to go out on a limb here because in my time here, LGF has been a pretty sane and rational forum, and I tend to agree with the majority opinions here. So when I find myself not in agreement with those opinions, it’s worthwhile to ask why.

I honestly didn’t find the McArdle article objectionable at all until the final notorious suggestion (which itself was the sort of thing that I could imagine Spock saying in a Star Trek episode, only to be roundly cursed by McCoy and Kirk).

From the reactions here, you would think that her entire essay was in support of the “rush the gunman” argument, but to me that seemed like an exhausted afterthought, almost a reductio ad absurdum. What came before it didn’t get as much attention.

I’m not strongly pro- or anti-gun despite having friends in both camps. Personally I would never want to own one, given the increased risk to my own family. Gun culture makes me uncomfortable.

Maybe I am lacking some context — I’m not familiar with McArdle or her body of writing, and I’m sure I would react more negatively if those words were written by a Palin or a Limbaugh.

Or maybe I am suffering from massacre fatigue, and days of reading and thinking and trying to process this incident has left me filled with fatalism. But the message of “nothing is going to work” had some resonance.

Help me out here. I am not taking the pro-gun side at all — I think the “arm all the teachers” ideas are repugnant. I just have yet to hear any solution that would have prevented this tragedy. Am I being too cynical and calling it being realistic?