281) The terrifying rise in transgender mass shooters
The right-wing, Conservative end of politics has snidely told us for many years now, "Facts don't care about your feelings."
Let's consider for a moment that the right-wing media jumped all over the initial reports that the shooter of Charlie Kirk engraved statements of "transgender ideology" on the unused bullets. And they quickly concluded the shooter was trans. Or at least, brainwashed by "transgender ideology". (Note: There's no such thing, but anyway...)
It seems none of that was true. But regardless of the truth, it's been repeated about a billion times already, all over the internet. And true to form, always happy to further endanger trans people, Donald Trump Jr. said on Megyn Kelly's show (which has more viewers than NBC and CBS news), "I can't name, including probably like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, a group that is more violent per capita than the radical trans movement. It feels like they've done every mass shooting in America for the last few years, but we're not allowed to talk about it."
So, trans people are the ones behind most mass shootings (maybe even every single one in the past few years!!)
*gasp!* Trans people are so violent!!! We need to protect society from those monsters!!!
Except, D'OH!!! PolitiFact checked out the last 4147 mass shootings. (Stop for a moment and consider the absurdity that there ARE 4147 mass shootings to check out.).
How many were committed by trans people? As best as gender could be assessed, the number was 0.17%. That's 1/6th of 1% of all those shootings. Leaving 99.83% committed by, well, cis people.
So, let's put this Inconvenient Truth into perspective:
Trans people account for approximately 1% of the US population. And they commit 0.17% of the mass shootings. Simply per capita, one would expect them to commit SIX TIMES more shootings than they do. Pretty peaceful group, it seems, relative to the rest of the population.
**logic wheels churning --- processing....processing**.....So trans people are not violent monsters?
Who knew? (In fact, trans people, and particularly trans women, are FAR more likely to be the VICTIMS of violence than pretty much any other group of people.)
Who commits all the mass shootings then? (Hint: It's EXACTLY the same group of people who commit almost all the violence against trans women.)
Yep, can't sugar-coat this one. It's men. Cis men. 98% of mass shootings are committed by men. And yet, men make up only 49% of the US population. They sure commit a lot more mass shootings than one would expect.
Does this mean men are violent monsters? Well, it sure means that far too many men fall off the rails and turn to violence instead of, you know, healing...becoming well-adjusted people....taking responsibility for themselves.
Weird eh? The group that preaches the most about "protecting people" and "being responsible", turns out to be the very group that is the worst at doing exactly those things.
Now THIS is a societal problem that needs to be addressed. There's something seriously fucked up with the proportion of men who turn to violence, and THAT is an issue that affects all of us.
So like, maybe, just maybe, trans people can just, you know, be left alone??
Anyway, back to Donnie Jr. He says he FEELS like trans people are committing all the shootings. But Donnie, your feelings don't make something true!! Haven't you ever listened to Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson? Feelings don't make things true!! FACTS do. Your feelings merely indicate that you are a prejudiced asshole, unplugged from reality, and unwilling to listen to reason.
I yearn for the day when MAGA realizes that facts don't care about THEIR feelings.But that would require that they become willing to actually listen to facts, instead of "influencers" who make them feel good about hating people.