Thread by @AndrewCFollett

Ok, I'll explain why @LastWeekTonight's claims about guns are total junk in this thread going point by point...as is tradition.

#2A

https://twitter.com/LastWeekTonight/status/1533866590973923330

The first false claim is at just 0:19 seconds, when Oliver claims "we all know" that the problem is "guns, bc we let basically whoever wants to buy a gun have one."

NOBODY who has EVER bought a gun thinks that.

This is a lie.

Under federal law, licensed gun dealers ARE REQUIRED to conduct background checks on all buyers and store the resulting records for two decades.

fbi.gov/services/cjis/…

Oliver then calls at :45 for "meaningful effective gun laws."

As I previously said, other countries Oliver likes such as Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland have higher mass shooting deaths rates than US, despite gun control

https://twitter.com/AndrewCFollett/status/1529577086372937729?s=20&t=win5JnI3S5ZZY8Zo1jCQ3Q

In the US, its VERY clear that gun control doesn't prevent general gun homicides either...

Wyoming has the least restrictive gun laws in US arguably...no gun homicide problem.

DC has the strictest...and a HUGE problem.

https://twitter.com/AndrewCFollett/status/1529577091771023360?s=20&t=win5JnI3S5ZZY8Zo1jCQ3Q

I'd say that data suggests that the factors making DC have such high gun violence rates are part of the story of why America as a whole is so deadly, but these cannot include high gun ownership or a lack of gun regulation...by definition.

If stricter gun laws reduced gun violence rates, you'd expect jurisdictions with those laws to have lower rates of gun violence.

Instead, we find quite the opposite.

nationalreview.com/2021/09/gun-co…

Oliver then attacks people who say that potential solutions to mass shooting are morale reform or hardening schools...naturally quote mining like hell to make his opposition sound nuts.

Oliver then calls hardening schools "clearly ridiculous" at 1:39 and then gets mad at the NRA for a while before switching to ranting about adding cops or arming teachers into schools is bad.

This is...not what Oliver's opponents want.

We're talking about allowing teachers who passed a CCW class to bring their guns 2 school.

Teachers can carry concealed handguns in about 30% of Texas school districts...not Uvalde. 19 other states already do this.

Since the year 2000, there has yet to be a single case of someone being wounded or killed from a shooting, let alone a mass public shooting, at a school that lets teachers carry guns.

crimeresearch.org/2022/05/anothe…

People fear teachers irresponsibly using guns or students obtaining a teacher's gun. But it's literally never happened. Not once

There has been only one accidental discharge by a teacher in a school, and that was outside of school hours.

While there have not been any problems with armed CCW teachers, the number of people killed at schools without concealed carry has increased significantly over the course of the last decade.

At 2:58 Oliver then claims the number of School Resource Officers (SROs) has "exploded," saying that 58% of schools have one AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK.

That is...an incredibly dishonest statement, as Oliver goes on to claim that schools have more cops than counselors.

That's a lie.

Seriously, 90% of schools have at least one full time counselor...and Oliver is lying that kids are "in closer proximity to a pair of handcuffs than they are to a mental health pro" there's more cops than those because 58% of schools have a cop appear ONCE A WEEK...

Oliver then rants at 3:34 that having officers in schools might...gasp...cause students to trust the police more!

[Note: My public school had a SRO officer, he was a great guy and we used to play basketball together. He was awesome.]

Oliver then gets BIG MAD at 5:13 at a random parent calling students "future taxpayers."

Oliver making fun of this guy is...a whole bit.

Then, at 5:55 Oliver claims that SRO's don't deter school shootings...notably not citing his source beyond saying" experts" and a random quote which I couldn't find on Google.

Given Oliver's track record, I have 0 faith he's honestly representing that expert.

But...even if he is...that ENTIRELY MISSES THE POINT of policing.

Deterrence is ONLY PART of the role of an SRO in a shooting, the other is to slow down the shooter to give other law enforcement time to respond.

Then, at 6:16, Oliver says his most sickening lie, that Uvalde had an SRO on site and "things still went the way they did."

This is a STRAIGHT UP LIE by Oliver. Even CNN says as much.

Then, at 6:59, Oliver cites this study (bc he's totally a man of one study) saying SRO's weren't associated with reduction in severity...

bit.ly/3zmwPzr

Then claims shootings w/ SROS have more causalities. That's NOT what study claims.

He CLEARLY didn't read it!

Like, let's pretend God himself said "this study is accurate" (and if u follow me at all, u know that science is utterly skewed in Oliver's direction on this issue.)

Saying "no reduction in severity" is NOT the same as saying "more causalities." Oliver is lying. Again.

We're ONLY at 7:50, and Oliver is claiming that SRO's have "significant damage" on kids.

Oliver then gets mad at 9:06 at a cop being in a school musical...this notably EXACTLY the kind of community policing Oliver previously called for in his police militarization video.

At 9:47 Oliver then gets BIG MAD that in "disadvantaged schools" cops engage more in law enforcement activities than in more successful ones.

Gosh John, maybe that's becuase there's more crime in those schools or something?

To be continued...

Then at 10:36 Oliver quotes some random teacher about how cops are being used more in schools...ignoring that this is PROBABLY BECAUSE violence in schools (not just shootings, all types) is WAY UP.

edweek.org/leadership/vio…

Oliver at 11:33 then gets mad cops in schools occasionally arrest students...

And quotes a bunch of clearly anecdotal stories of cops arresting kids which he finds inappropriate via zero tolerance policies.

I agree, these are often dumb policies.

Specifically, at 13:03 he cites a story of a girl who did a science experiment which caused a popping sound like gunshots...she got arrested for making a sound of an explosion.

CLEARLY, that's an overreaction...and the charges were dropped in this case.

Oliver at 14:37 says that arresting students can do damage to their future...which...of course they do.

This seems more like a problem with the ridiculous zero tolerance policies WHICH OLIVER PREVIOUSLY ENDORSED IN his anti-charter rant than SROs.

Like look, America is a country of ~330 million people...you can ALWAYS find an example of some policy being poorly implemented.

In fact, that's kinda Oliver's entire business model.

At 19:05, Oliver straight up says SRO's are racist because African American students represent 31.6% of all students arrested, which is higher than their share of enrollment.

This flat out ignores that this divide isn't an SRO thing as Oliver said...but also RATHER CLEAR in school discipline not involving the law.

This is true despite teacher's being among the most left wing professions in existence

At 22:07 Oliver denounces the lack of a national training requirement for SROs.

There's...literally no national training requirement for ANYTHING involving education. States do that John!

And now...the most unbelievable part...at 22:53 Oliver cites unspecified experience OF HIS OWN STAFF about SRO's allegedly behaving badly.

John, you think that MIGHT be a skewed sample? That MAYBE people who work for you might be a tad...dishonest and Lib? Ya know, like you?

I'm just amazed that his "evidence" is literally "my employees said this was true in their own personal lives...in a total coincidence I literally paid them to say that...that's all my evidence."

At 24:54 Oliver demands we "try to just get [SRO]s out of schools altogether!"

He cites the case of Oakland CA...which EVEN HE doesn't claim went well.

Basically, Oliver is arguing to "Defund School Police" to fund other stuff

When Oliver's policy preference was basically implemented nationally in 2020...murders rose by 30%.

heritage.org/crime-and-just…

Oliver literally says at 25:40 "school police are not the answer to school shootings, the answer to that is gun control."

That's...again...a flat out lie.

Cities Democrats have run for DECADES w/ the MOST gun control have THE HIGHEST GUN HOMICIDE RATES!

https://twitter.com/AndrewCFollett/status/1529580324694507525?s=20&t=K0NfJfO4MOtc8AqESSquvA

I've been doing a lot of #OliverDebunked

Here's some previous examples.

https://twitter.com/AndrewCFollett/status/1379126189844004867?s=20&t=1W1GM2gi7DU7vhrJIq9PxQ

The important thing to realize is that this guy is both a liar and a total partisan hack.