This is just my personal opinion, but the basic problem with implementing gun control in America is that “the genie is already out of the bottle.” There are tons and tons of guns stockpiled in the hands of American citizens. Setting aside the issue of whether or not it *should* be done, let’s say you pass legislation tomorrow that bans the sale of all guns and ammunition. That still leaves a whole lot of people out there with a whole lot of deadly weapons already in their possession. (If a bill like that passed, incidentally, firearms would suddenly become more valuable than gold, so perhaps it’s a good investment opportunity to buy them now-which is almost certainly one reason people buy stockpiles of guns and ammunition.)

Remember that alleged lynching of a bi-racial kid in New Hampshire? Periodically I’ve been Googling for new information, because you may recall I applied my superpowers of skepticism to that story and found it didn’t pass the smell test. I’m not sure I consider Newsweek to be the most journalistic of sources, but here’s an interview with the parents of one of the alleged attackers. And here’s an ABC News story with more detailed information from all sides (the photograph did indeed come from Facebook).

One other observation about Las Vegas: In the wake of mass shootings in America, another important battleground for activists of all stripes is the race to place blame on who politicizes the event first. Activists believe that whichever party America thinks politicized the event first “loses.” So it is incumbent upon Republicans to point out if Democrats try to use shootings to enact gun control legislation, and it is incumbent upon Democrats to point out if Republicans try to cover up domestic terrorism. (That is pretty much standard operating procedure for activists in every situation every day, to be honest.)

Whenever there’s a mass shooting, one of the most important things for left-leaning activists in this post-Trump world (I should start naming them as “The Resistance”) to find out is whether the shooter is a white guy or not, and if so, to label him a terrorist. I understand the reasons for it, because Trump and the right in general have spent so much time trying to label brown people as terrorists. Trump wants to ban immigration from certain predominantly brown-people countries for fear that terrorists will infiltrate the country. The vast majority of brown people are *not* terrorists, so the left feels the need to turn the tables on the narrative and point out that Americans are more likely to get killed by mass-murdering white terrorists already inside the country than brown terrorists from abroad. (Which is 100% true. It’s also true that Americans are more likely to get killed in a car accident or from a heart attack than by either white or brown terrorists. Statistically speaking, no American should be afraid of terrorism in any shape or form.)

I have to be extremely careful about this post, because it’ll be easy for someone to pick out some words here and there and conclude that I’m a white supremacist racist bigot kitten killer. I think “white nationalist” is one of the most insidious negative propaganda labels I’ve heard in a while. It dawned on me one day that you can use that label to describe basically any white person who expresses any positive sentiment about their country. (America, in this case.)

It occurred to me while browsing through my Twitter timelines that there are a lot of tweets that have built-in straw man logical fallacies. They usually follow one of these forms, which I’ve made up: Them: Some ridiculous claim that doesn’t make sense. Us: That’s a ridiculous claim that doesn’t make sense! “The moon is made of green cheese.” That’s dumb! Everybody knows the moon is made of blue cheese!

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins’s tweet is representative of the Twitter backlash against former White House press secretary Sean Spicer appearing at the Emmys last night: Is it supposed to be comical that the former White House spokesman is now tacitly admitting that he lied to the American people? — Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 18, 2017 No, but it’s comical that the American people-and journalists, of all people-don’t understand that the literal job of the White House spokesman is to lie for the president.

Saw this tweet come through Tweetdeck: UPDATE: To be clear, I don’t follow that account. It was retweeted. “Everyone should be outraged,” it said. About what? I hovered over the link and found the title of the story: “New Hampshire police refuse to discuss apparent lynching of biracial boy.” That is the correct way you should respond to questionable tweets in your feed. Note that at no time did I click any part of the tweet. I did not retweet it, I did not click the link.

Yet another example of why you should never trust a tweet. Saw this on Twitter: BREAKING—In mere weeks we went from "no collusion with Russia" to "here's a Letter of Intent Trump signed with some Russians while running." pic.twitter.com/GcFmGRnpd8 — Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) September 9, 2017 Seth Abramson, a lawyer according to his bio (but mainly a pundit) said, and I quote, “here’s a Letter of Intent Trump signed with some Russians while running.”

You know the liberal bubble is 100% airtight when people actually believe Rush Limbaugh said that a hurricane is a liberal hoax. Exclusive video of Rush Limbaugh fleeing Florida after calling Hurricane Irma a liberal hoax. pic.twitter.com/PZcloMao4n — Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) September 8, 2017 Rush Limbaugh - who called Irma coverage a liberal hoax - has decided to flee the liberal hoax. — Kurt "Masks Save Lives" Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) September 8, 2017