Lawyer Live-Tweets Delaware Courthouse Shooting, Draws Ire by Daring to Speak Ill of Guns

Posted on by

(WARNING: I’m going to say some not-nice things about guns in this post. If this bothers you, please click this link.)

A gunman entered a courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware at about 8:00 a.m. local time this morning and shot at least four people, killing two, before police killed him. One of the deceased, according to CNN, might be his “estranged wife,” but nothing is certain, since this occurred less than two hours ago as I am typing this. I wish that I could add surprise to my disgust, but someone deciding to resolve things with their estranged spouse via bullets is not an original solution. My main impetus for buying a handgun in 2008, in my lawyering days, was out of a sense of discomfort around certain opposing parties in a few lawsuits.

What is still relatively novel is the phenomenon of live-tweeted tragedies. Anyone who has lived through a traumatic event knows that thoughts come in random and unpredictable ways. Anyone who makes frequent use of Twitter knows that people can now share those thoughts in as long as it takes to type 140 characters or less into a handy smartphone. They also know that a quick thought sent into the Twitterverse may be subject to extensive deconstruction by people who have the luxury of not being in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event, and who will presume to know better than that person how they should have responded.

That brings me to my point. I have never met Jennifer S. Lubinski, nor have I ever been to Wilmington, Delaware. We are privy to her thoughts on the experience, though, thanks to social media.

 

I guess mentioning the NRA was her big mistake. As we all know, guns don’t kill people. That guy could have just as easily walked into that courthouse with a knife, baseball bat, or extremely taut rubber band and killed the same number of people, because shutuplibertySecondAmendmentFREEDOM. One might be tempted to call that hyperbole, but minor challenges to the sanctity of guns tend to bring out the sputtering and syntactically challenged among us. I really see no point in blocking out the names on these gems, especially since I am mostly going off of the tweets that Ms. Lubinski herself retweeted, or that were made in direct reply to her.

 

 

 

 

The following is my favorite. In fact, I’m awarding it my First Annual Award for Redundancy of the Year Award:

Anyway, that goes on and on for a while. Go check out the thread before some people think twice and delete their tweets. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with calling out someone commenting, even in the immediate wake of a traumatic event, in a way that seems to perpetuate negative and harmful stereotypes. Before you do call someone out in that way, though, make sure they are actually doing that. I know nothing of Mr. Zerbey except what I can read from his Twitter profile, but none of that is really cogent to my point, which is that he drew an unwarranted inference. (If Mr. Zerbey reads this, I bear you no particular ill will. You just happened to be the person who showed up first in the discussion.) Ms. Lubinski asked where the NRA was as someone shot up a courthouse*. Others took that as an attack on law-abiding gun owners. News flash: the NRA represents gun manufacturers. A significant number of gun owners are not on board the NRA crazy train. In addition to that bit of misrepresentation, the usual apoplectic reaction to comments that are less-than-supportive of guns (not gun rights, just guns themselves) suggests that gun owners, in their capacity as gun owners, are actually pretty privileged. Anyway, this must all be part of some campaign to make gun owners slightly less comfortable with themselves, right?

Okay, I’ll leave Mr. Zerbey alone. Here are a few less-thoughtful tweets:

 

NOTE: The following tweet has an altogether inappropriate and unnecessary epithet in the handle. The content of the tweet displays about as much thought.

Oh……snap? Seriously, humanity should be embarrassed. Finally, the ever-popular “shut up, that’s why” response:

For my own part, I’m done humoring the idea that there is any danger whatsoever of anyone trying to come and take people’s guns. I’m also done with the idea that someone else’s right to bear arms automatically trumps my right not to get shot by some dumbass who decided to carry in public but forgot to clear the chamber or any of the near-infinite ways responsible gun owners have found to shoot themselves and others by accident. The fact that the Founding Fathers did not think to expressly include the right not to get shot in the Bill of Rights might simply be the result of that right being very, very obvious.

Finally, if the people on this thread are to be believed, then any comment that reflects negatively on the NRA is a slight against all law-abiding gun owners. If that’s how you want to play it, then I will impute every pro-gun statement, no matter how psychotic, to all gun owners. That will be difficult, since I am a gun owner, but I guess I’ll just have to learn to be crazier. I’m going to go download some Ted Nugent.

I’ll leave you with a reminder that the desire to own near-military-grade weaponry in the comfort of your own home has nothing to do with dudes’ feelings of inadequacy. You know, about their penises being small.

Much like your penis, people will freak out if you pull this out in a crowded room.

Much like your penis, people will freak out if you pull this out in a crowded room.

* Generally, I might add, an area with more than a smattering of armed security. I don’t know how they run things in Delaware, but I guaran-f*****g-tee you that sheriff’s deputies in Texas courthouses are packing, and they tend not to put up with tomfoolery. Even they can’t respond to every crisis, though.

Share

One thought on “Lawyer Live-Tweets Delaware Courthouse Shooting, Draws Ire by Daring to Speak Ill of Guns”

  1. Pingback: My Right Not to Get Shot | Cryptic Philosopher

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *