Devout Orthodox Jew (but I repeat myself) and married, conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro used the Washington Post's article "What We Know About the Wisconsin School Shooter, Natalie Rupnow"as a launching pad to promote his view of marriage and family.
New information on the 15-year-old female Wisconsin school shooter suggests her parents repeatedly divorced and remarried. Family turmoil is one of the leading causes of societal dysfunction. We need to return to the fundamentals: family and marriage come first, and they’re not… pic.twitter.com/9RoGU6IPHA
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 18, 2024
Nonetheless, Shapiro's comments emphasized his conviction that "family is first" and that the most important function of marriage is to raise children. He comments (at 2:35 of the video)
Marriage should be the predicate to sleeping together and having children. I know these are old-fashioned ideas but they existed for a reason. And I think that what we are now experiencing in the West is a new understanding that maybe the old, those things we didn't understand so we just uprooted them, many of those things wer there for a reason. Many of those social institutions existed the way they did for a reason. Maybe, for exampe, the focus on not sleeping together until you were married , that focus- which was a focus for all of the West and indeed most of civilization for all of human history- maybe that was a smart idea because it channeled sexual passion into family building.
Shapiro is entitled to disapprove of pre-marital sex, but there is little support on the left, the right, or the center for the notion, nor should there be. Further, the historical reasons people favored marriage include the lowly social status of women, the economic benefit of two people sharing incomes, and (ironically, given Shapiro's anti-intercourse argument), the ready availability of sex. Fortunately, women are now permitted to have (sometimes lucrative) careers, and social media has become a convenient vehicle for the platonic and the not-so-platonic to hook-up.
Ironically, Shapiro's values were echoed by Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy in his majority opinion in Hodges v. Obergefell. Striking down state prohibitions on same-sex marriage, Kennedy claimed in part that "the right marry is fundamental because it supports a two-person union unlike any other in its importance to the committed individuals;" marriage "safeguards children and families and thus draws meaning from related rights of childrearing, procreation, and education;" and marriage is "a keystone of the Nation's social order."
Whatever its constitutional clarity (weak), the premise that individuals cannnot thrive without being married is clear. (The four liberal Justices could be muttering under their breath "he's an indiot but we'll take it.")
Nonetheless, the very unacceptability of Shapiro's outlook within the broader American public renders it less dangerous than his opening remark. Noting that Rupnow's father was active on Facebook, Shapiro stated (at 1:15)
But there is one post from August that has attracted more scrutiny than others in that a photo which appears to show the suspect wielding a gun and taking aim at a firing range. So obviously, this means that the left is going to focus in on gun control as the chief issue here.
His first clue that it should be might have been the photo of a nine-year old girl firing a pistol on a firing range. The second clue could have been that (aside from the perpetrator herself, who committed suicide), the eight individuals who were killed or wounded, generally a nifty trick in the absence of a firearm. The third is a reality of which Shapiro already must have been aware. While the USA "ranks at the 93rd percentile for overall firearm mortality," the rate of death by firearm is closer to countries experiencing "active conflict" than it is to the rate in nations not so plagued.
And ponder that among adults in the USA
One in five (21%) say they have personally been threatened
with a gun, a similar share (19%) say a family member was killed by a gun
(including death by suicide), and nearly as many (17%) have personally
witnessed someone being shot. Smaller shares have personally shot a gun in
self-defense (4%) or been injured in a shooting (4%). In total, about half
(54%) of all U.S. adults say they or a family member have ever had one of these
experiences.
Predictably, Ben Shapiro's concern would "focus in on gun control as the chief issue here" is not aging well. The left continues to be fairly unconcerned with gun safety. Legislation would not disproportionately assist the LGBTQIA+ community, and though the generational African-American community is disproportionately harmed by gun violence, a large amount of it is perpetrated by individuals therein because of the debilitating impact of distressed neighborhoods. It thus may be, unfortunately, perceived as a double-edged sword. And the right's love affair with the proliferation of firearms is unabated.
On Tuesday, Charlie Pierce wrote "Saturday was the 12th anniversary of the unfortunate exercise of Second Amendment freedoms at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which was going to be enough for the country to do something serious about its insance attraction to its firearms." In 359 days, it will be 359th anniversary of the exercise of Second Amendment freedoms, which still will not be enough for the country to do something serious about its noxious attraction to its firearms.
