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What We Learned About Modern Feminism from Santa Barbara
I’ve been reluctant to comment on the horrifying mass shooting in Santa Barbara over Memorial Day weekend, as there is certainly nothing I – nor anyone else – can say to make sense of this tragedy. Yet on Friday I was a panelist on PBS’s To The Contrary, where I had to discuss the incident, and I thought it was appropriate to expand on the discussion here.
There has been no shortage of writers who have felt obliged to share their opinion about this awful event. But this deluge of commentary immediately in the wake of the murders is not only grotesque and self-involved, but also threatens the health of our society.
At the very least we ought to be skeptical of anyone who tries to offer insight – much of which has led to absurd conclusions like blaming actor Seth Rogen for this atrocity. But really we ought to be much angrier – and much more forthright – about those who have tried to extrapolate something larger about American culture, gender relations, or sexual violence from this horrible incident.
My 
In the wake of last week’s shooting rampage by Elliot Rodger in California, there’s been a predictable firestorm over the Second Amendment and whether America makes it too easy to access guns. In this episode of the Libertarian podcast from the Hoover Institution, Professor Epstein addresses some of those issues: Was the Second Amendment meant to protect individual rights or collective ones? Has the Supreme Court’s recent jurisprudence on the issue gotten us closer to, or further away from, the original meaning? And, even if the critics have their way, do the kind of gun control regulations we most frequently hear proposed have any real prospect of curbing violence like what we saw last week? Listen to hear Richard’s take.
Elliot Rodger, the killer at UC Santa Barbara, was not just mentally disturbed, he was a grade-A jerk. He was envious of wealthy people, yet drove a BMW. He was inconsiderate of his roommates; this included playing loud music in the middle of the night. A neighbor tried to help him meet people by taking him to a party, but instead he acted “like a ghost” and “just stared at people.” He harbored a grudge against a girl who rejected him when she was in seventh grade. Despite all this, he considered himself polite and a gentleman.