The War Against Guns

The “wrenching ritual,” the New York Times tells us, “has become all too familiar for President Obama.”

The ritual in question is greeting and mourning with the families of the victims of gun violence. Many times, these are victims of Islamist terrorism. Sometimes they are not.  Sometimes they are victims of psychotics that state governments, under the aegis of the ACLU, have refused to have committed involuntarily. Of course, when the victims are blacks who are gunned down by other blacks on the streets of Obama’s home town, the president does not show up and has nothing to say.

Lest we forget: at times the Obama administration, living in its own Fantasyland, has refused to call Islamist terrorists like Maj. Nidal Hasan, terrorists at all. It insisted on calling the Fort Hood massacre “workplace violence.” In this and in almost all other instances the press has had the president’s back. It might be considered a co-conspirator in the cover-up.

The Times might have asked why the Age of Obama has been so singularly infested with so much gun violence.  Does the president have some responsibility for the mood of the country? Does he bear some responsibility for keeping America safe? Should his Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security have been doing a better job?

As American airport security lines are backed up for hours on end, causing many people to miss their flights, the administration and the media seem to believe that it has all been caused by circumstances beyond their control. If a Republican had been in charge, he would have been taxed with gross incompetence and negligence.

According to the Times: Obama has no responsibility for any of the gun violence that has infected America on his watch.  It reports that Obama feels everyone’s pain. He is offering grieving relatives: "genuine hugs." He might not be very good at defending the nation and he might not be very good at fighting ISIS, but he is great at empathy:

He grasps for words of sympathy, comfort and condolence and offers long, tight embraces that the mourners will remember far more vividly than his words….

Beyond politics, the trip was a moment for the president to play the somber official role of consoler in chief. It was also the setting for a deeply personal and private set of encounters in which Mr. Obama, better known for his cool and unruffled temperament, dispenses with the trappings of his office and becomes an emotional father identifying with parents who have lost children.

But, Obama is not going to do anything about any of it. He does not think it’s his fault or his responsibility. He thinks that it’s all about guns. So, he has declared war on guns. As I have been pointing out all week, Democrats and the media are crafting a narrative that blames it on guns, on the NRA, on Republicans and on Christians. Not a word about the acts of the Muslims who Obama considers to be peace lovers. Not a word about presidential leadership or responsibility.

On its editorial page the Times lost all semblance of rational thought and has blamed the Orlando massacre on guns. You know, the new self-shooting guns, the ones that do not need a human trigger finger. But the fault does not just lie with guns. It lies with anyone who has opposed same-sex marriage and transgendered restrooms.

One might notice that these two postmodern inventions never existed in human history before very recent days. By the Times lights, throughout the course of human history in all human societies at all times and places gays were disrespected and degraded because they were not allowed to marry people of the same sex. They were not allowed to marry for love... like Romeo and Juliet. Of course, very few people ever married for love anyway, so what point is the Times making?

Now, it wants us to believe that an Islamist terrorist had learned to hate gays from the opponents of gay marriage. As it happens, everyone but the Times knows that ISIS, among other Islamist groups, is following Sharia law in making homosexual acts a capital crime.

And, of course, the Iranians with whom the Obama administration believes that it can strike a deal over nuclear weapons count among the worst offenders. About that, the Times has nothing to say. Nor has the Times covered the fact that Iran is a world-leading country in gender reassignment surgery. If they catch you being gay in Iran they will hang you. Better to be a eunuch than to be dead.

As for the infamous Times editorial of June 15:

Omar Mateen shattered the tenuous, hard-fought sense of personal safety that many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have begun to feel as the movement for equality has made significant gains in recent years. His bullets and the blood he left behind that early morning were a reminder that in many corners of the country, gay and transgender people are still regarded as sinners and second-class citizens who should be scorned.

While the precise motivation for the rampage remains unclear, it is evident that Mr. Mateen was driven by hatred toward gays and lesbians. Hate crimes don’t happen in a vacuum. They occur where bigotry is allowed to fester, where minorities are vilified and where people are scapegoated for political gain. Tragically, this is the state of American politics, driven too often by Republican politicians who see prejudice as something to exploit, not extinguish.

For the Times it was not a terrorist attack on America. It was not an attack on our fellow citizens, and thus an attack on our nation.  For them it was an assault on their own dogmatic beliefs. Which apparently counts for more than an attack on the nation. Doesn’t this suggest that gay Americans are a people apart?

And then, of course, the Times lays a guilt trip on all those who have opposed its own radical agenda:

As the funerals are held for those who perished on Sunday, lawmakers who have actively championed discriminatory laws and policies, and those who have quietly enabled them with votes, should force themselves to read the obituaries and look at the photos. The 49 people killed in Orlando were victims of a terrorist attack. But they also need to be remembered as casualties of a society where hate has deep roots.

Not a word about Islam. Not a word about blaming Islamist terrorists. The Times really wants to make a certain group of Americans feel responsible for an attack that took place while Barack Obama was president. 

As for the presidential candidates, Donald Trump seems to have bought in to this anti-gun narrative by proposing to cut a deal with the NRA. It’s his way of showing that he might know how to govern the nation. Unfortunately, he is selling out to those who have been producing the grand drama that is shifting blame away from Obama.

If Trump missed the point, as might have been expected from a proponent of New York values, Ted Cruz did not. The Conservative Review reported on his speech on the floor of the Senate. Read it and you will see why Republican leaders preferred Trump to Cruz and why they thought that Cruz was the Devil incarnate:

“This week played out all too predictably.” Cruz said. He blasted Democrats for shifting to gun-control and in particular characterized Senator Chris Murphy’s (F, 8%) filibuster as “a political show on the Senate floor.”

“This is political distraction; this is political gamesmanship.” Cruz said. “And I think the American people find it ridiculous … this is not a gun-control issue. This is a terrorism issue.”

“You don’t defeat terrorism by taking away guns,” he added later, “you defeat terrorism by using guns.”