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Thursday, February 7, 2013

Crime Conservative Pro-Gun "Sandy Hook Dad" Not Really a Sandy Hook Dad

Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 10:50 AM

Conservatives are passing around this video of Bill Stevens's snotty testimony to Congress on gun control. (A note overlaid onto the video even reads "...every American needs to think like this man!" Which is a truly chilling sentence.)

The problem, as Mark Joseph Stern points out, is that Stevens ties himself to the Sandy Hook massacre by using oblique language stating that his daughter was "was in lockdown" as the shooting happened. Technically, this is true. His daughter was in lockdown. But she was not a Sandy Hook student, as the title of this video claims. Stevens's daughter was in lockdown at Reed Intermediate School, which, according to Google Maps, is about 3 miles away from Sandy Hook Elementary.

I'm not trying to say that Stevens had no right to testify before Congress. And I'm not saying that he intentionally misled anyone. But I am saying that it would have been perfectly reasonable for conservatives to label this video "Newtown Father Owns Congress." But they didn't. And the fact is, a video labeled "Newtown Father Owns Congress" simply wouldn't have gathered as many views—nearly 2.5 million!—as a video labeled "Sandy Hook Father Owns Congress." Purposeful or not, it's a smarmy bit of misdirection that capitalizes on tragedy.

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@8 I'm sorry, but his daughter WAS NOT subject to evacuating her school because it was filled with dead students. Fuck off.

Posted by kittenalarm on February 7, 2013 at 1:26 PM

Assuming Paul Constant is not lying (Libs lie a lot)...

The guy's daughter was subject to the same violence there that the actual enrolled students at Sandyhook were. This makes him a de facto "Sandyhook Dad," and has legal standing in the matter for testifying purposes.

Get your shit in one sock libs. A little more critical thinking, a little less ad hominem insults.

Posted by GeneStoner on February 7, 2013 at 1:19 PM

Like most things conservatives say, it's entirely sarcastic unless you ask someone in the bubble, who won't hesitate to tell you the "true" meaning of how the libtards fault and Obama did it.

Posted by watchout5

on February 7, 2013 at 12:57 PM

I'll go ahead and say it: he is speaking in deliberately misleading terms.

Posted by MacCrocodile

on February 7, 2013 at 12:31 PM

Christ. Did they get anything in that story right??

Posted by Urgutha Forka on February 7, 2013 at 12:25 PM

Huh. I was expecting a bull-necked, shaved-headed ex-Green-Beret type.

I guess it's a good thing that Caspar Q. Accountant has something in his life to feel manly about.

Posted by rob!

on February 7, 2013 at 12:00 PM

Conservative people lie a lot.

Posted by randomitis on February 7, 2013 at 11:55 AM

Reed is also a middle school. Not that it's that much better, but his kid would probably, at the age of 12-14, been better able to cope with a lockdown at a school at which there was not a shooting than a 5 year old at a school where they had to walk past pools of blood to get out the door.

Posted by gnot on February 7, 2013 at 11:45 AM

Also, that's not "Congress" he's owning.

It's a working group of the Connecticut state legislature. (According to Google Maps, it's about 341 miles away from Congress.)

Posted by An indelicate gesture on February 7, 2013 at 11:26 AM