The Left Politicizes Gun Murders

With the high-profile murders of the late-term abortionist George Tiller and the security guard shot at the Holocaust Museum, liberals are seeking to politicize the events and tar conservatives as right-wing nuts who could go postal at any moment.

Conservatives have condemned these acts, but that hasn't stopped liberals from attempting to use them as a cudgel to bash conservatives.

For example, Paul Krugman of the New York Times wrote,

Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s _ a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing...

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

Matthew Yglesias of the liberal blog Think Progress recently wrote:

"Following up on the assassination of George Tiller, we appear to have a new outbreak of right-wing domestic terrorism as white supremacist James Von Brunn goes on a shooting spree at the U.S. Holocaust Museum."

There are also hints that the Left may try to use these shootings as a way to begin infringing on Second Amendment rights. As Open Left's Chris Bowers blogged:

"Outside of the 60-vote rule in the Senate, the NRA is emerging as the right-wing's top weapon against progressive legislation."

I think both these murderers were insane nuts. If we're going to look at using these events as a catalyst to change policy, perhaps we should consider talking about the issue of mental health. For example, the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, was declared mentally ill in Virginia but was still free to attend classes, and ultimately kill his fellow students. Clearly, the failure here was a mental health issue _ not a "gun" issue. If we are going to begin looking to pass legislation to curb these violent incidents, why don't we consider doing something that might actually work _ like looking at changing laws regarding mental health issues?

Because taking up the cause of mental health does not advance the cause of liberalism.

Frankly, though, those of us who value not just the Second Amendment but the First Amendment, are getting a bit nervous over accusations that conservative talkers somehow inspired these killings. Might this will be used as an excuse to silence "dangerous" commentators like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh?

Personally, I find it interesting that the same people who decry censorship of explicit material, arguing that it is ridiculous to say a child who plays violent video games or listens to heavy metal or rap music might be influenced by it, seem to now believe that adults are easily influenced by ... Bill O'Reilly. If Cop Killer cannot inspire an inner-city youth to commit a crime, and Ozzy's "Suicide Solution" cannot push a suicidal kid over the edge, how am I to believe that Bill O'Reilly can lead someone to murder?

Meanwhile, conservatives have pointed out that this clearly isn't a "right-wing" problem. Anti-Semitic statements, for example, were recently made by long-time Obama pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Additionally, as Leon Wolf noted at RedState, the Holocaust shooter,

• Hated Christians.
• Despised Bush and McCain.
• Posted lengthy rants about "Neocons" involved in Jewish conspiracies to alter U.S. foreign policy in favor of Israel.
• Placed credence in 9/11 "truther" theories."

Wolff goes on to note anti-Jewish rants on diaries at the liberal website Daily Kos, writing: "I imagine it goes something like this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this."

Ultimately, though, this is merely another case of hypocrisy. As Libertarian-leaning blogger Jon Henke wrote on his Facebook page today,

"The people who objected to connecting Obama to socialists and Ayers now want to lump all conservatives in with militant radicals."

It's funny how that works.