# Newtown School Massacre Happened Because The School Was Too Damn Feminine **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 20, 2012, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600 "2012-12-20T03:48:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/1 "2012-12-20T03:48:10Z")
Is this, perhaps, the single worst piece of commentary regarding the Newtown school shooting? [http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335996/newtown-answers-nro-symposium#](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335996/newtown-answers-nro-symposium#) Just a taste of the idiocy: > [@](#): > > There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a sizeable number of whom were undoubtedly 11- and 12-year-old boys (it was a K–6 school), all the personnel — the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the “reading specialist” — were female. There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees. Now, never mind that the facts are completely wrong (it’s a K-4 school, there were men there). Consider the scare quotes on “reading specialist”. Consider the efficacy of bucket throwing against an AR-15 and two handguns. Consider the fact that Columbine, Aurora, and Goddamned Fort Hood certainly had more than a few men available. The final point is equally idiotic: > [@](#): > > You simply can’t give a non-working, non-school-enrolled 20-year-old man free range of your home, much less your cache of weapons. You have to set boundaries. You have to say, “You can’t live here anymore — you’re an adult, and it’s time for you to be a man. We’ll give you all the support you need, but we won’t be enablers.” Yes, when the choice is your mentally ill child or your cache of weapons the obvious choice is “Get out you fucking psycho”. When anyone asks me why I am no longer a conservative, or why I feel that what passives for conservative thought these days (in National Review for fuck’s sake), I will link them this article. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/2 "2012-12-20T04:02:02Z")
> [@Charlotte Allen](#): > > There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. False: there _was_ at least one adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. Namely, the shooter. Yep folks, when several women heroically sacrifice their lives attempting to protect children from a male mass murderer, what that means is that it’s bad to have lots of women around, y’know? ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/3 "2012-12-20T04:21:10Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > Is this, perhaps, the single worst piece of commentary regarding the Newtown school shooting? Really? 'cause I got to think that the worst possible piece of commentary would be using a tragedy as a political point > [@Jas09](#): > > When anyone asks me why I am no longer a conservative, or why I feel that what passives for conservative thought these days (in National Review for fuck’s sake), I will link them this article. You are guilty of that. Bite me. You are a bad person and you should feel bad. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/4 "2012-12-20T04:28:02Z")
I’m not saying the author of the linked article isn’t a douchebag. I am saying, however, that the author of the OP is just as much of one. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/5 "2012-12-20T04:28:55Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > Really? 'cause I got to think that the worst possible piece of commentary would be using a tragedy as a political point. Hm… a good point. “National Review has been reduced to a pathetic shell of what it was under William F. Buckley (although even then it was a bit racist)” is pretty much just a stupid as: > [@](#): > > Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza. Even considering that there were no twelve year olds at Sandy Hook, there was more than one male staff member, and that a shooter had, in the not too distant past, killed just as many people at a FUCKING ARMY BASE. Yup, my commentary on the state of NRO is certainly much worse. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/6 "2012-12-20T05:10:55Z")
This is the dumbest Charlotte Allen column I’ve read since [this one](http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-allen-palin-for-president-20121118,0,1525685.story)\*: > [@](#): > > The Republican Party has been doing a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing since the presidential election. Half the conservative columnists and bloggers say the GOP lost because it overemphasized social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. The other half says the party didn’t emphasize them enough. And everyone denounces Project ORCA, the campaign’s attempt to turn out voters via technology. > > But I’ve got a suggestion for cutting short the GOP angst: Sarah Palin for president in 2016. > > You think I’m joking? Think again. And it goes _downhill_ from there. \*I’ve only ever read two Charlotte Allen columns. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/7 "2012-12-20T05:24:39Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > Yup, my commentary on the state of NRO is certainly much worse. You might get traction, and responses, on your take of the tragedy. But that does not mean you are better than they are. They are the jackals, and you are the crow. You want to drink the spilled blood just as much as they do. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/8 "2012-12-20T05:26:48Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > Really? 'cause I got to think that the worst possible piece of commentary would be using a tragedy as a political point But using somebody else’s dumbshit illogical inane commentary about a tragedy to make a political point is not the same thing as using the tragedy itself to make a political point. > [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > I’m not saying the author of the linked article isn’t a douchebag. I am saying, however, that the author of the OP is just as much of one. That makes no sense. We’re not required to give dumbshit illogical inane political commentators a pass on their inane dumbshittery just because they happen to be talking about a horrifically tragic event. If the OP feels that this commentator’s idiocy reflects badly on her host site as well as her entire ideology and political affiliation and consequently wants to distance himself from them, I don’t see how that makes him a bad person or a douchebag. Saying stupid dismissive things about heroic victims of horrible crimes makes you a douchebag. Saying contemptuous things about douchebags and the media and political institutions that enable their douchebaggery, on the other hand, does not. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/9 "2012-12-20T05:35:15Z")
Semi-automatic weapons depots in the home of a violent psychopath are the cause of this incident. People who come up with bizarre and twisted and cruel theories to avoid this conclusion should really not be given a public forum in which to spew their cruelty. Do we really have to report the conclusions of nutjob armchair sociologists defending home armory caches as though they were thoughtful and respectable members of society and on the same page as the forensic psychiatrists? Aren’t there mercenary magazines and back pages of supermarket tabloids for this kind of crap? ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/10 "2012-12-20T05:39:56Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > We’re not required to give dumbshit illogical inane political commentators a pass on their inane dumbshittery just because they happen to be talking about a horrifically tragic event. My point exactly. Did you not get that? ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/11 "2012-12-20T05:46:33Z")
What is the fucking point of a home weapons cache if you don’t use it to shoot everything you don’t like? Weird kid? Shoot him! What the hell else are the weapons there for?? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/12 "2012-12-20T05:49:54Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > My point exactly. Did you not get that? No. What exactly did you think was “inane”, “illogical” or “dumbshit” about the OP’s critique of the linked dumbshit illogical inane article? And in what way, according to you, was the OP attempting to make a political point out of a tragedy? Seems to me he was instead attempting to make a political point out of that commentator’s stupidity. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/13 "2012-12-20T05:51:13Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > My point exactly. Did you not get that? False equivalence, jackass. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/14 "2012-12-20T05:52:47Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Saying stupid dismissive things about heroic victims of horrible crimes makes you a douchebag. Saying contemptuous things about douchebags and the media and political institutions that enable their douchebaggery, on the other hand, does not. It seems that Mr. **Monkey** is using a similar strategy to those Christians who bleat “you can’t comment on my intolerance of others! Cause that make YOU the intolerant one!” Perhaps he’s afraid that recent events will cause us to take his gun away. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/15 "2012-12-20T05:54:13Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Semi-automatic weapons depots in the home of a violent psychopath are the cause of this incident. > > People who come up with bizarre and twisted and cruel theories to avoid this conclusion should really not be given a public forum in which to spew their cruelty. Do we really have to report the conclusions of nutjob armchair sociologists defending home armory caches as though they were thoughtful and respectable members of society and on the same page as the forensic psychiatrists? Aren’t there mercenary magazines and back pages of supermarket tabloids for this kind of crap? As best I can figure, the real goal is to cement the idea that doing something about the guns is such an impossible idea that we’re stuck discussing plainly ridiculous ideas like training our elementary students to be[crack suicide squads](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_12E1EN6fs) as the best we can possibly do. The whole idea is to get in before opinion starts to congeal around the idea of any minimal additional regulations on guns, and divert the whole conversation to whether or no we should be arming teachers and even more idiotic ideas, because if we’re all having that conversation, they get to keep their precious fetish objects, and maybe more kids get shot, maybe less, that’s not really the point for them. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/16 "2012-12-20T06:03:26Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > No. What exactly did you think was “inane”, “illogical” or “dumbshit” about the OP’s critique of the linked dumbshit illogical inane article?. I suppose it would be this sentence: > [@09](#): > > When anyone asks me why I am no longer a conservative, or why I feel that what passives for conservative thought these days (in National Review for fuck’s sake), I will link them this article. That’s the guy’s last sentence in the thing. I’m not sure what to make of his Freudian slip in substituting “passives” for “passes”. But, well, I don’t think he ever was conservative and I take a slight bit of umbridge. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/17 "2012-12-20T06:06:22Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > False equivalence, jackass. Fuck you. The mods can ban me. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/18 "2012-12-20T06:11:15Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > Fuck you. The mods can ban me. Well, that’s a pretty stupid hill to chose to die on. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/19 "2012-12-20T06:29:35Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > I suppose it would be this sentence: > > > [@Jas09](#): > > > > When anyone asks me why I am no longer a conservative, or why I feel that what passives for conservative thought these days (in National Review for fuck’s sake), I will link them this article. > > That’s the guy’s last sentence in the thing. I’m not sure what to make of his Freudian slip in substituting “passives” for “passes”. But, well, I don’t think he ever was conservative and I take a slight bit of umbridge. I’m not sure what to make of your own slip in substituting “umbridge” for “umbrage” except it leads me to suspect that you’re a fellow Harry Potter fan. 😉 Seriously, however, I still don’t think your analogy is apt. It sounds as though what you’re mad at the OP about is just a possible “guilt by association” fallacy: that is, you object to his suggesting that conservatives _in general_ are saying stupid things just because this one conservative commentator is saying stupid things. But that’s got nothing to do with the _subject_ of the commentator’s stupid remarks. The fact that the original topic of the stupid commentator’s musings happens to be an appalling tragedy has nothing to do with the OP’s critique of the musings or his association of them with modern conservative thought as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600/20 "2012-12-20T06:30:42Z")
> [@waterj2](#): > > Well, that’s a pretty stupid hill to chose to die on. Hills, valleys, whatever. I know the mods. Well, not personally, but they may give me a “warning” for posting the word “fuck” in the BBQ. So be it. I don’t post that much anyway, and, though I can’t control what anybody on either side of the political coin says, I can say “NO”! here. Liberal, conservative, I don’t care. Just be fucking human. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newtown-school-massacre-happened-because-the-school-was-too-damn-feminine/644600.md?page=2)