FedSoc Event At A Shooting Range Is The Most Sadly Obvious Post-Parkland Story

Law students plan trip to the gun range in epic display of poor taste.

In a tumultuous world, it’s good to know that we can always rely on the Federalist Society. While GOP lawmakers duck behind the new and improved “thoughts and prayers,” the Federalist Society is there to run face first into the belt sander of tone-deaf responses.

Yale’s Federalist Society is hosting an outing to a shooting range because “something, something Second Amendment.” It’s sure to be a rip-roaring time of Freudian overcompensation that ends with the inevitable smiling portrait of everyone hoisting machine guns in the air to tweak the libs, blissfully ignorant of the fact that they look like the cover of an ISIS training brochure.

To put this in perspective, imagine if ACS gave out free cancer screenings after Obamacare passed… wow, there really is no corollary on the liberal side, is there?

The invite for the event that we’ve received from tipsters was sent the morning of the shooting, so they hadn’t written this with knowledge that their fetish had just gotten 17 people murdered in a school. Some will cite this fact as a defense. It is, indeed, evidence that the law students weren’t entirely callous in the face of this most recent tragedy, but it’s very weak sauce as an excuse.

And not just because the event still appears to be a go based on the website. Even if FedSoc were to cancel the event immediately — which they should out of basic decency — it still doesn’t absolve them.

Because what’s the appeal of a gun event in the first place? A celebration of a gun culture that members feel is “under attack”? “This isn’t about trolling the people killed in Florida,” one might say, “it’s about drawing attention to our constitutional rights.” A nice and diplomatic statement, but also garbage because you can’t divorce that sentiment — this narrative that the fetishists are the “real” victims of an effort to impinge their “rights” — from the broader context.

Not when this event is being planned less than an hour from Sandy Hook Elementary.

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The Second Amendment persecution complex that gets these folks all lathered up only exists because children were slaughtered up the road from Yale Law. There’s no constitutional issue without school shootings. Mass shootings are statistically the rarest way to die of gun violence, but they’re also the most public representations of more rampant gun violence occurring throughout the country. When FedSoc sent around its email promoting their gun love in as “fun” event, the Parkland killings may have been hours away, but the impish joy they get embracing a taboo that their more sober classmates reject is forever intertwined with those murdered in the interest of flooding the market with military surplus.

But even if the organizers don’t want to admit this to themselves, at least call this thing off. Consider that the maxim that “it’s too soon to talk about gun regulations” must have a corresponding flip side and “it’s too soon to have a party about guns” seems like a fair one. If that’s frustrating, then now you know how the rest of us feel.


HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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