National Review: Give Your Kids Boundaries, Like 'No, You May Not Shoot Up A School'

Oh, everybody was sooooo outraged when Megan McArdle took to the pixels of the Daily Beast to suggest that since only banning all guns would be effective in stopping gun violence, and we can't ban all guns, we should train our children to "gang-rush" men who are shooting at them with semi-automatic weapons, "Let's roll!"-styley. Everyone screamed and moaned about how Megan McArdle is the worst, stupidest person in the whole darn land, and no one could ever be stupider. But surely you knew National Review Online -- and specifically Charlotte Allen -- had yet to weigh in?

First Allen -- of the Independent Women's Forum, a delightful congregation of old bats who like to call up political offices and scream about homos -- said a bunch of nonsense about how elementary schools have become feminized places because there were no male teachers at Sandy Hook. (That people on the right are suspicious of any man who wants to teach children, as he is doubtless a queer, is now forgotten.) She says a bunch of factually false things -- that it was a K-6 school, so some of the "huskier" 12-year-old boys should have banded together to take Adam Lanza out (it was K-4), that there wasn't a single male on the campus, not even a janitor to throw a trash can lid at Adam Lanza (there was a janitor, and he was a he), and laughable garbage nonsense like that.

She gives brief praise -- it is probably not actually praise though, since the principal acted in an unfeminine way -- to the principal and the teachers.

The principal, Dawn Hochsprung,seemed to have performed bravely.According to reports, she activated the school’s public-address system and also lunged at Lanza, before he shot her to death. Some of the teachers managed to save all or some of their charges by rushing them into closets or bathrooms.

But, clucks Allen, it's a feminized setting! Whatever, that is not even the stupid part, it is just boilerplate "Independent" Women's Forum, which is like Phyllis Schlafly's dumber, uglier cousin. That "feminized" part is practically Charlotte Allen transcribing the bylaws.

No, the stupid part is the end:

Parents of sick children need to be realistic about them. I know at least two sets of fine and devoted parents who have had the misfortune to raise sons who were troubled for genetic reasons beyond anyone’s control. Either of those boys could have been an Adam Lanza. You simply can’t give a non-working, non-school-enrolled 20-year-old man free range of your home, much less your cache of weapons. You have to set boundaries. You have to say, “You can’t live here anymore — you’re an adult, and it’s time for you to be a man. We’ll give you all the support you need, but we won’t be enablers.” Unfortunately, the idea of being an “adult” and a “man” once one has reached physical maturity seems to have faded out of our coddling culture.

Got a sick kid? Set boundaries. Tell him NO, YOU MAY NOT SHOOT UP A SCHOOL. Is your child mentally ill? Make him a man by calling the U-Haul for him! Stop coddling your mentally ill child by giving him a "home" and "food." Give him all the "support" he needs in other, unnamed ways that aren't homes and food, because homes and food are "coddling."

That Allen actually begins that graf by thinking of two families she knows with kids who are "troubled" for genetic reasons -- i.e., schizophrenia or the like -- and then lovingly explains that they will be just fine once they are out on their own, is, sadly, about what you could expect from NRO today. Although it's not a perfect NRO piece if the shooter's not black. 

[ NRO ]