Congresswoman Says School Shootings Are Caused By Porn, Mental Illness, Single Parents... But Mostly Porn

from the pron dept

In the wake of any mass or school shooting that occurs in America, which pretty much means most of the time that exists, everyone immediately runs to their preferred corners to blame their preferred target for the latest tragedy. I've pointed this out as often as I can, but the truth is that both gun violence and the incidence of mass shootings in America is a terribly complicated subject that deserves all the nuance and sober-thinking it could possibly be afforded. But, since this is America we're talking about, we tend to do the exact opposite and instead pick a single target and heap as much blame as we can on it. It's guns that's the problems. Or it's violent movies. Or video games. Those are the typical targets, and they have been for some time. Meanwhile, the shootings continue, nothing is done, and on it goes.

House Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee knows why this is. We've had the wrong target all along. The real cause of school shootings is porn.

During a meeting last week with local pastors, Black raised the issue of gun violence in schools and why it keeps happening. “Pornography,” she said. “It’s available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there’s pornography there,” she continued. “All of this is available without parental guidance. I think that is a big part of the root cause.”

Where, oh where, is this magical world where porn is acquired at the local grocery store without any parental supervision? I'm asking because teenager-me would have really liked this world and, if a time machine is ever invented, I would like to travel back in time and tell him/me how to get there. The link above also asks a relevant question: what the hell kind of porn is Rep. Black watching? Because I've, ahem, heard third-party accounts of what pornography generally consists of and looks like, and violence generally is left at the fringes, while violence to do with mass shootings is something I've never even heard of. Especially in the kind of porn you can reasonably get in the local grocery store.

Sadly, Rep. Black failed to clarify what the hell she was talking about, so we're left to imagine where she is getting her school-shooting smut from. On top of evil, evil pornography, she also suggested that mental illness and broken families were the problem.

Beyond naughty movies, Black said school shootings are on the rise because of the “deterioration of the family,” mental illness and violent movies.

These feel like they're on more solid ground than blaming porn, but only in relative comparison to the former. It's still the same old problem of picking out a few scapegoats and pretending they explain America's mass shooting problem, rather than having an honest and nuanced view of all the contributing factors. Were we Americans to actually employ this logical mindset, we could then proceed with a real discussion of what we want to do about all the factors that play into school shootings.

But, naaaah. Blaming porn is way easier.

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Filed Under: blame, diane black, porn, school shootings, single parents