Time for the Friday 5, the stories that caught my eye today and somehow elicited from me an opinion other than “does happy hour begin at 3 pm or 4 today?”
1. It doesn’t matter whether Mark Hasse was carrying a gun.
The tragic story of Hasse, the Kaufman County chief felony prosecutor who was gunned down on his way to work yesterday morning, dominated news coverage yesterday. It is a tragedy in every way, but one detail kept bothering me. Many in my social media/blogosphere feed seemed eager to determine whether Hasse was armed at the time of his murder. (He usually carried a gun on him, according to reports.)
You know it doesn’t matter whether he did or not, right? Both sides of the gun debate — those who argue against gun control, and the right side — like to point to individual instances of people defending themselves with firearms or their failure to do just that as justification for their gun-policy stance. Sorry, but small sample size arguments are ridiculous.
If you want to argue if carrying a gun around makes you (or those around you) safer in the aggregate, bring it. But one instance means nothing either way. So those waiting to see if Hasse was armed to buttress their argument (the “He would have killed them/Didn’t help him, did it?” tweets are locked and loaded) should move along.
2. The Dallas Morning News says that Ted Cruz is making John Cornyn more of a right-wing nut job.
Huh! Ya don’t say. (BTW: Yes, Chuck Hagel was terrible yesterday. But Ted Cruz was still slimy in the way he massaged quotes to fit his questioning. Contain your shock.)
3. Hear that? It’s all the gay Boy Scout sex about to start happening.
Eric Nicholson at Unfair Park has a good wrap-up of how some are saying the Boy Scouts’ consideration of lifting its ban on gays will turn them into “horny gay molestees.” Of course Mark Davis makes an appearance. If there’s a fear-based misconception to be spouted, Marky Mark is there.
4. Robert Jeffress’ position on homosexuality hasn’t changed, so stop writing that it has.
Actually, that’s the headline from this piece on FrontBurner, where it’s rightly noted that the smiling, interesting, charming First Baptist hate-monger is still a pud. (Paraphrasing may have occurred.)
5. Local stud celebrated in DFW.com “social media powerhouses” list.
See No. 11. To which I say: well, duh.
Retweets
Indeed.
Live every week like it's shark week. #30RockForever
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) February 1, 2013I know you're shocked, but some people think it matters whether or not prosecutor Mark Hasse was carrying a gun when he was shot at the Kaufman County Courthouse.
