Is The Left To Blame for Today’s Shootings?

I think the shooter, combined with the ready availability of guns, is to blame for today’s shooting. Of course, in their usual fashion, Republicans rush to blame anyone but themselves. Gabbie Giffords, herself a victim of an assassination attempt made a post today expressing her sorrow and support.

The ammo-sexuals didn’t receive that too well. Here are a few examples:

https://twitter.com/DACHIBEAR85/status/874973254510931968

David Frum tweets about gun control, and of course, “it’s too soon to be making this about politics.” Of course, the problem with that is that there is an average of just under one mass shooting per day in the U.S. If we keep up this logic (which is exactly what the NRA intends), it’s always too early to have the debate.

And right on cue, Republicans start blaming Democrats and liberals. Republican Chris Collins of New York’s 27th District went there, almost immediately. Appearing on Buffalo’s WBEN Radio 930 AM, Collins wasted no time zeroing in on who he thought was to blame for the non-fatal incident:

“I can only hope the Democrats tone down the rhetoric. The rhetoric has been outrageous, of the finger-pointing, just the tone, and the angst, and the anger directed at Donald Trump, his supporters. I can only hope maybe there’s something here that would say, ‘tone down the rhetoric.’”

And of course, they couldn’t crank up the “if more people had guns…” meme fast enough. Never-mind there were two armed Capitol Police on hand, and yes, they managed to shoot the guy, but not before being shot themselves. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), who was present during the morning’s shooting, leaped immediately to the notion that if he and his staff were carrying guns themselves, during their morning of baseball practice, the shooter “wouldn’t have gotten too far.” He had this to say during an interview:

“If this had happened in Georgia, he wouldn’t have gotten too far. I had a staff member who was in his car maybe 20 yards behind the shooter who was penned in his car, who back in Georgia carries a 9 mm in his car. I carry a weapon. He had a clear shot at him, but here we’re not allowed to carry any weapons here.”

Q: But you can carry in Virginia.

“Yeah but most of us are here in DC … how do you have the gun here and just transport it to Virginia?”

Q: Should members be allowed to carry in DC?

“I think we need to look at some kind of reciprocity for members here, but also we need to look at security details,” […]

Of course, the usual hew and cry about getting more guns in the hands of everyone flies in the face of facts, but, you know…facts, we don’t need no stinkin’ facts. Gun ownership has increased every year for the past 8 years, and so have the numbers of gun crimes…dramatically. So, that whole thing about the “good guy with a gun…” let’s just cut that crap.

Loudermilk also used the shooting to justify the Republican lack of “Trumpcare” town halls with citizens.

“This is exactly why there’s a lot of fear of even doing town halls at this point. Some of the things this guy is posting on Facebook—we get the same things and even worse.

Talk about a snowflake.

And good ole Rand Paul, he forgot to delete this tweet, where he makes the point that he believes the Second Amendment is about shooting government officials. We’ll also include a graphic, if he decides to delete it.

So, we’re off to the races…once again offering our “thoughts and prayers,” but likely doing nothing more than selling even more guns. I guess if there’s a silver cloud, some of these Congressmen will now be charging the NRA a lot more money for their continued support. By the way, Congress had to postpone a hearing today on a bill, because the bill’s sponsor was shot. The bill to be discussed would reduce the restrictions on the purchase of amour piercing ammunition.

You can also read this article I wrote earlier about how we already give migratory birds a more sporting chance than we do people.