Stop Exploiting the Pittsburgh Shooting Tragedy

As you might have heard, there was a tragic shooting in Pittsburgh yesterday, in which 3 police officers were killed. While I am always dismayed at the coverage of these tragedies, particularly the fascination with the murderer to the exclusion of the innocent victims, I am particularly frustrated with the rush to politicize them.

In this case, the liberal blogosphere has seized on this detail, drawing a straight line to Obama Derangement to this shooting:

Poplawski feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon," said Edward Perkovic, his best friend.

Perkovic, 22, said he got a call at work from him in which he said, "Eddie, I am going to die today. ... Tell your family I love them and I love you."

This might make an interesting sidenote a week from now, but a lot of liberal blogs are acting like this was the reason the guy did it. Daily Kos even thinks it's fair game for Twitter titters.
Using this incident as proof that guns should be banned makes as much sense as saying that the Son of Sam is proof that dogs should be banned. Policy ideas are either good or bad, and they don't gain or lose merit based on the actions of lunatic outliers.

This gun stockpiling story is not new. If you're going to make your case based on one out of millions of gun owners, you will lose. I believe in sensible gun control, and in sensible arguments.

The guy just lost his job, and he lived with his mom. I don't think Barack Obama was his biggest problem. In any case, this story should be about Eric Kelly, Paul Sciullo III and Stephen Mayhle. They are the first Pittsburgh police officers to be killed in the line of duty in 18 years. Think about why they did what they did.

Update: Ed Morrissey sums it up very well thusly:

People on both sides like to take non-political tragedies and manipulate them for their own purposes. The Binghamton shooting occurred just before we went on the air Friday, and I remarked that both sides tried to use the Virginia Tech shooting to their advantage, and that I expected something similar from Binghamton. Some people refuse to acknowledge that lunatics do lunatic things, and it has nothing to do with the honestly-held policy beliefs of millions of Americans. Those who would use such horrifying tragedies to smear their political opponents are completely unworthy of engagement, and utterly despicable to boot, regardless of which side they're on.

Tommy on: Daily Dose

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