How Not to Respond to Mass Shootings

Following the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton last weekend, liberals immediately took the advice of President Obama’s former Chief of Staff and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who once said “Never let a crisis go to waste.” Believe it or not, calls for gun control have not dominated the conversation this week. Instead, demonization of President Trump has. Many on the left took glee in the fact that the El Paso shooter had posted a manifesto on social media echoing President Trump’s commentary about an “invasion” at the southern border. The shooter also mentioned that his views predate President Trump’s election and indicated that he subscribed to a Malthusian ideology that has more in common with the beliefs of the Earth Liberation Front than anything that comes out of the Republican Party platform.

The mainstream media spent the days following the shooting attempting to blame President Trump for the tragedy in El Paso. Jonathan Karl of ABC News asked White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney if he thought President Trump’s rhetoric, “especially in light of what we’ve just seen, isn’t it just dangerous?”  As Fox News’s Howard Kurtz pointed out, the media have used “the kind of inflammatory rhetoric” that they slam President Trump for using. It looks like the media have no desire to look in the mirror when it comes to their rhetoric.  

So, we’ve definitely established the fact that the left believes that a politician’s rhetoric can lead people to commit acts of violence against the people whom the aforementioned rhetoric targets, or at the very least, discusses. In response to the shooting in El Paso, President Trump condemned “racism, bigotry, and white supremacy,” and stressed that “hatred has no place in America.” In addition, President Trump called on Americans to “set destructive partisanship aside…and find the courage to answer hatred with unity, devotion, and love.”  Apparently, many on the left did not get the memo.

For years, many on the left have promoted themselves as peacemakers eager for everyone in America and around the world just to get along. This principle serves as the motivating factor behind the “Coexist” symbol found on many bumper stickers that features a Star of David as an “x,” and a cross as the “t.”  Code Pink has worked tirelessly to keep the United States out of foreign entanglements although it has recently transformed from a principled organization to just another left-wing grievance group; as demonstrated by its efforts to derail the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Maybe Code Pink forgot that Supreme Court justices don’t make foreign policy, Presidents do.

In light of some of the outrageous behavior displayed by liberals over the past week, I have assembled a list of “dos” and “don’ts” concerning the behavior of following mass shootings; mostly “don’ts.” Take a look.

DON’T: Fantasize about the deaths of conservatives while pretending to care about unity.

If anything, the left has ramped up “destructive partisanship” in the wake of the mass shootings that claimed the lives of about three dozen people. In addition to President Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has become the villain of the left and the scapegoat for the mass shootings. Not long after the #MassacreMoscowMitch began trending on Twitter, protesters gathered outside of McConnell’s home in Louisville. One of the protesters expressed her hope that someone “just stabs the motherf***er in the heart.” While a Republican elephant and a Democratic donkey did not quite make it into the “Coexist” symbol, future artists might want to consider it. Based on the left’s own standards (and logic), these left-wing protesters would bear some of the blame if someone, God forbid, ended up actually stabbing McConnell in the heart.

For a while, it looked like a movie promoting “destructive partisanship” would soon hit movie theaters. “The Hunt,” originally scheduled for release on September 27, portrayed “left-wing ‘elites’ hunting Trump supporters for sport,” as The Hollywood Reporter pointed out. One of the characters uttered the line “nothing better than going out to the Manor and slaughtering a dozen deplorables.” While Universal Pictures initially decided to go ahead with releasing “The Hunt” in spite of the mass shootings, it eventually decided to pull the plug so Hollywood and the left would not look like hypocrites when it came to calling for unity.

DON’T: Dox your political opponents in an effort to intimidate them.

Congressman Joaquin Castro, brother of presidential candidate Julian Castro, doxed a bunch of Trump donors who live in San Antonio, the city he represents in Congress. According to Castro, “their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.’” While Castro tried telling Willie Geist that he had no intention of causing physical harm to the people he doxed, history tells a different story.

Last year, Maxine Waters, one of Castro’s colleagues on Capitol Hill, urged left-wing activists to harass Trump administration officials, telling them “if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anywhere anymore.”

Liberals took Waters’s advice, descending on Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as she dined at a Mexican restaurant. They definitely made her feel unwelcome. Now, liberals, led by Castro, apparently see it in their best interest to harass people who merely support President Trump in an effort to make them feel like “they’re not welcome anywhere anymore.”  This should not come as a surprise either. In the past, liberals have tried to raise holy hell on companies or people who espouse beliefs that they disagree with. Left-wing outrage forced Brendan Eich to step down as Mozilla CEO after days on the job because he dared to make a donation in support of Proposition 8, the California Constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage. Five years later, liberals have directed their fire at billionaire Stephen Ross, who owns Equinox and SoulCycle, because he had the audacity to host a fundraiser for President Trump at his home in the Hamptons.

DO: Acknowledge that the blame ultimately rests at the feet of the shooter.

President Trump, meanwhile, has rejected the urge to engage in “destructive partisanship.” As he departed from the White House to visit the victims of the shootings in El Paso and Dayton, President Trump did a job many in the media refused to do by mentioning the political affiliations of the Dayton shooter; who admired Elizabeth Warren and Satanism. He told reporters he does not blame Elizabeth Warren for the fact that one of her supporters carried out a mass shooting.

During his appearance on This Week Sunday, Mulvaney stressed that Bernie Sanders did not bear any blame for the shooting at the Congressional baseball game practice carried out by one of his die-hard supporters and that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not deserve any blame for “the crazy guy who tried to blow up the DHS office in Washington state…what he called a concentration camp, the exact same rhetoric that AOC was using.” While what happened in Washington state does not meet the definition of a mass shooting, it definitely has all of the hallmarks of attempted political terrorism.

DON’T: Provide wall-to-wall coverage off the mass shootings, thus giving the shooter what he wanted: infamy.

It does not take long after a mass shooting for the blame game to begin. Without understanding that a desire for attention serves as the motivating factor behind most actions taken by individuals in 21^st Century America, one cannot understand the motivations for Bear with me as I ask some rhetorical questions. Why did Lady Gaga wear a dress made out of meat? A desire for attention. Why did Beto O’Rourke livestream a trip to the dentist? A desire for attention. Why do girls post pictures placing special emphasis on certain body parts on social media? Because they know that posting those pictures will get them the most likes, which ultimately serve as a gauge to quantify attention.

Everyone in America wants attention, for better or for worse. Some people fail to get the attention they want from classmates, co-workers, and/or their family. Not everyone who experiences a lack of attention ends up committing mass murder; most, if not all Americans, experience loneliness and isolation at one point or another in their lives. A strong belief in God and faith that better days lie ahead can help many people cope with these feelings. Reacting to “the great disasters that had befallen Russia” during the communist reign of terror, Aleksandr Solzhenistyn once said, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” That same line of thinking could easily apply to the mass shooting epidemic. For those who did not believe in God, a constant lack of attention creates a lingering hatred in them that causes them to act out the second the bubble containing all of their rage finally bursts. Don’t expect liberals to want to have a discussion about that anytime soon.

It seems like news organizations have done a better job of refraining to use the shooter’s name and thus depriving them of the infamy they so desperately seek. Still, the constant media drumbeat, coupled with their decision to use the mass shooting as an excuse to advance the far-left agenda, does more harm than good to the nation in my opinion.

DON’T: Act as if gun control will solve every problem in our society.

While the gun control discussion has taken a back seat to the demonization of President Trump following the mass shootings, the topic has nonetheless come up on cable news and late night “comedy” this week. While CNN hosted an anti-gun town hall, supposed comedian Samantha Bee urged lawmakers to “get rid of the guns,” acting as if doing so would lead to an end to violence in America. Just hours before the airing of the most recent episode of her show, “Full Frontal,”a madman went on a rampage in southern California, killing four people with a knife. Long story short, sick and evil people will always find a way to inflict pain on innocent people even if the gun control liberals fantasize about becomes reality. If that happens, ordinary Americans would lack the ability to defend themselves from psychos like the El Paso shooter, the Dayton shooter, and the perpetrator of the knife attacks in Orange County by using their Second Amendment rights.  

DO: Continue to debate hot-botton political issues while respecting the humanity of those on the other side of the aisle.

Robust debate in American politics can and must continue.  For the American experiment to survive, people must respect the humanity of their political opponents. Only in third-world countries do people fantasize about the elimination of their political opponents, as former Congressman Luis Gutierrez did during a recent appearance on Univision. In civilized countries, such as the United States of America, people settle their differences at the ballot box.