Left Side of the Aisle #70 - Part 5

Update on: Guns and mass shootings; the hypocrisy of the right

Three weeks ago, I talked about James Holmes, who went into a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado and killed 12 people. Two weeks ago, I talked about Wade Michael Page, who walked into a Sikh temple in a suburb of Milwaukee, and when it was over, seven were dead, including Page.

Now I get to talk about Floyd Lee Corkins. On the morning of August 16, he went into the offices of the right-wing Family Research Council in Washington, DC. When he was challenged by a security guard, he pulled out a gun and shot the guard in the arm. Despite being shot, the guard managed to subdue Corkins. No one else was hurt, no one was killed - although we have to say that we don't know what would have happened if Corkins hadn't been challenged.

Three incidents, three cases of guns, three cases of bloodshed. However, there was one difference.

When Holmes went on his rampage, the right wing gun nuts all immediately, almost in unison, shouted "lone wacko." No connection to anything else, they insisted. When Page shot down peaceful worshippers, we again got the "lone wacko" treatment from the right despite the fact that Page had spent the previous 10 years in the racist white power music scene. But of course that had nothing to do with what he did. Of course not. Domestic terrorism? Don't be absurd. Lone wacko.

Now we have Corkins, who supposedly told the guard "I don't like your politics" before shooting him and was described by his parents as having "strong opinions with respect to those he believes do not treat homosexuals in a fair manner.” In other words, unlike most shooters, he appears to be coming from the left.

So is he another "lone wacko" according to the right wing? Of course not! He's not a lone wacko, he's a product of the left!

The president of the Family Research Council, an idiot named Tony Perkins, blamed the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups - such as the Family Research Council - as responsible for the shooting. He said that by labeling groups like the FRC as "hate groups" - that is, by calling them what they are - the SPLC is "giving people a license to take innocent life." It's the SPLC's fault.

The next day, he added the Obama administration. The Obama administration is to blame for this, he said, by virtue of the "hostile atmosphere" it has created by its "hostility to religious freedom." Corkins is no lone wacko, he's the result of Obama!

So someone on the right shoots up a bunch of people? Lone wacko! No connection to anything else. Someone from the left shoots someone? The entire left half of the American political spectrum is to blame. That is how the loons of the right see the world.

Sources:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/fbi_family_research_council_suspect_said_i_dont_li.php
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/family_research_council_says_liberals_gave_shooter.php
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/family-research-council-obama-administration-linked-to-shooting
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/family_research_council_shooting_splc.php