How did the Hollis Alvin James Reid Daniels, III of Seguin, a.k.a. Reid Daniels or Hollis Daniels, come to have a firearm on the Texas Tech campus?
This is among the most damnable, stupid, and idiotic question being asked, over and over by members of the press, about the horrible murder of Texas Tech police Office Floyd East, Jr.
Take a story on unanswered questions in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal for example. Writer Matt Dotray makes his primary question “How did the 19-year-old shooter have a gun?” and his secondary question “How did the suspect have a gun at the police station?”
How about this Matt Dotray: How did the 19-year-old student have illegal drugs on campus? Drugs are banned and come with prison sentences. Guns are legal to own, even if not to possess on the campus, by a 19-year-old student.
In other words, there are many legal ways to obtain a firearm but not illicit drugs. However members of the media cannot focus on much other than a gun being present while ignoring the presence of drugs, which by the way proves the contention of gun-rights advocates that gun bans don’t do much to stop people from having things they shouldn’t if criminality isn’t their concern.
To put the question of a student having a gun on campus ahead of how did the student keep a gun on his person after being arrested and taken to the police station for booking is devoid of informed thinking.
The serious, constructive questions are: Why was Daniels not effectively searched and cuffed when taken into custody? Is there a university or department policy that lead to this breach of standard police protocol?
Another key question is: How did the shooter qualify to live in a dormitory next to our sons and daughters after an on-campus arrest for drugs in September of 2016?
Those are questions that matter to the future safety of police and students at Texas Tech.
Questions about how someone happens to have an item with them that is commonly available and legal to own most everywhere else, but banned in the one space, is not a meaningful or useful question. It is like focusing on how a drunk-driver managed to have a beer with him in the driver’s seat when open containers of alcohol are banned in that space.
Tech shooting: Media subordinates meaningful questions to the useless
This is among the most damnable, stupid, and idiotic question being asked, over and over by members of the press, about the horrible murder of Texas Tech police Office Floyd East, Jr.
Take a story on unanswered questions in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal for example. Writer Matt Dotray makes his primary question “How did the 19-year-old shooter have a gun?” and his secondary question “How did the suspect have a gun at the police station?”
How about this Matt Dotray: How did the 19-year-old student have illegal drugs on campus? Drugs are banned and come with prison sentences. Guns are legal to own, even if not to possess on the campus, by a 19-year-old student.
In other words, there are many legal ways to obtain a firearm but not illicit drugs. However members of the media cannot focus on much other than a gun being present while ignoring the presence of drugs, which by the way proves the contention of gun-rights advocates that gun bans don’t do much to stop people from having things they shouldn’t if criminality isn’t their concern.
To put the question of a student having a gun on campus ahead of how did the student keep a gun on his person after being arrested and taken to the police station for booking is devoid of informed thinking.
The serious, constructive questions are: Why was Daniels not effectively searched and cuffed when taken into custody? Is there a university or department policy that lead to this breach of standard police protocol?
Another key question is: How did the shooter qualify to live in a dormitory next to our sons and daughters after an on-campus arrest for drugs in September of 2016?
Those are questions that matter to the future safety of police and students at Texas Tech.
Questions about how someone happens to have an item with them that is commonly available and legal to own most everywhere else, but banned in the one space, is not a meaningful or useful question. It is like focusing on how a drunk-driver managed to have a beer with him in the driver’s seat when open containers of alcohol are banned in that space.