Mourning the dead is so passé when you’re a liberal with an to grind — which, come to think of it, may be redundant. Some voices on the left seized on the announced capture of a suspect in the shooting in Charleston yesterday as an opportunity to renew calls for gun control. Others used the occasion to condemn America as a racist — and even anti-Muslim(!) — nation.
Among those to sound the alarm on the need for more stringent gun laws was the president, who introduced the topic in his remarks from the White House press podium as well as at a planned fundraiser at the Hollywood home of TV producer Chuck Lorre. Never mind that even if the most recent legislative effort to constrain gun violence, the 2013 Manchin-Toomey bill, had passed, none of the provisions in it would have precluded the Charleston massacre. The man suspected of the shooting, Dylann Storm Roof, had been cleared to own a handgun via a background check, and the gun he used was neither an assault weapon nor one that used a high-capacity magazine.
Picking up on the racism theme was Washington Post opinions page deputy editor Karen Attiah, who called the attack with considerable bombast “a deeply violent reminder that racism and white supremacy continue to course through America’s veins.”
She also went on to note parenthetically that Roof was apprehended peacefully (as opposed to, say, Walter Scott, a black man who was shot dead by police when they attempted to arrest him) which was the theme of a whole subset of comments on Twitter. Nearly all of these tweets, a nice cross-sample of which was gathered by Twitchy, included the hashtag #WhitePrivilege:
#DylannStorm has been caught ALIVE in Shelby, NC. #WhitePrivilege #CharlestonShooting pic.twitter.com/xmH7TCL38V
— Bipartisan Report (@Bipartisanism) June 18, 2015
That terrorist got caught in my neighborhood? It’s interesting that he’s captured alive #WhitePrivilege #CharlestonShooting — Arlaadi (@arlaadi) June 18, 2015
Yes, alive of course. #CharlestonShooting #WhitePrivilege https://t.co/0P8jySUHpo
— Freddie Dukes (@MasaiATG) June 18, 2015
One tweet, from academia no less, fixed blame on the racist “ideology” fostered by Fox News and other conservative media outlets:
The ideology of racism promoted by the @FoxNews and Co. breeds the terrorists who commit #CharlestonShooting https://t.co/G9FyLm5cP5 — Muslimerican (@FaheemYounus) June 18, 2015
The tweeter, Faheem Younus, is a clinical associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He is also a Muslim, who tweets under the handle @Muslimerican, which brings us to our last politicization, offered up by former Obama green czar Van Jones:
I call on all media to use terms “white racist” + “terrorist” with same force & ease that we would use terms “Muslim” + “terrorist.” @cnn
— Van Jones (@VanJones68) June 18, 2015
Don’t think for a minute that these comments are the last you will hear on the topics presented. The finger-pointing and name calling will continue right up to the next mass murder and beyond.
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