Weed, Women, and Video Games: Right-Wing Media Blames Just About Everything but Guns for Highland Park Shooting – Vanity Fair

In the wake of another horrific mass shooting, right-wing media heavyweights have broken into their well-rehearsed song and dance numbers that blame such recurring tragedies on weed, antifa, antidepressants, video games, and even lectures from womenwhich is to say, everything except Americas stunningly lax gun laws.

On Monday, Robert Bobby Crimo III, a 21-year-old white male armed with a rifle similar to an AR-15, allegedly killed seven people at a Fourth of July parade held in Highland Park, Illinois, wounding an additional two-dozen-plus attendees. (Crimo has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, with more charges expected.) In Tucker Carlsons coverage of the rampage, the Fox News star revived Reefer Madnessesque arguments linking cannabis use to violence. Like Crimo, [a lot of young men in America] inhabit a solitary fantasy world of social media, porn, and video games, the host said. They are high on government-endorsed weed. Smoke some more! Its good for you. Theyre numbed by the endless psychotropic drugs that are handed out at every school in the country by crackpots posing as counselors. Carlson then blamed women for the violent rage exhibited by young men like Crimo. Of course theyre angry. The authorities in their livesmostly womennever stop lecturing them about their so-called privilege, he continued. Try to imagine an unhealthier, unhappier life than that. So a lot of young men in America are going nuts. Are you surprised?

About two hours later, Laura Ingraham pushed the same talking pointsor as she put it, mounting scientific evidence connecting violent behavior among young people to sustained cannabis useto explain away the shooting without mentioning guns. What can regular pot use trigger in young men in particular? Psychosis and other violent personality changes, the host said. As the faces of other mass shooters flashed onto the screen, Ingraham, who made the same argument following the Uvalde, Texas, shooting, suggested that stoned eyes are a clear warning sign exhibited by mass shooters: These are the eyes of some of the mass killers who have reportedly been regular pot users. Look at them.

Others have attempted to take a simpler route to paint Crimo as a leftist, essentially arguing, Well, hes tattooed his face, dyed his hair weird colors, and dressed as a woman to evade the police, so he must be antifa! If you look at antifa, thats how they look! said Fox News host Greg Gutfeld. Newsmaxs Greg Kelly made similarclaims on Tuesday. Take a look at himand quite frankly to me, Ive seen [his] type before, remarked Kelly. He looks a little antifa-ish, doesnt he?You know he was caught wearing womens clothing. Kelly went on to add that maybe, like leftists all over the place, [Crimo] liked wearing womens clothes, even though hes a he. (In May, similar bogus assertions were made about Salvador Ramos, the Robb Elementary School shooter. In what appeared to be an attempt to haphazardly pin Ramoss violent acts on their political enemies, conservative figures, including Representative Paul Gosar in a since deleted tweet, falsely claimed the shooter was trans or wore womens clothes.)

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Weed, Women, and Video Games: Right-Wing Media Blames Just About Everything but Guns for Highland Park Shooting - Vanity Fair