HE FEARED THE ‘OBAMA GUN BAN’…. The latest gun massacre occurred this morning in Pittsburgh. This one had a more political bent than most.
A man opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call Saturday morning, killing three of them, a police official said. Friends said he recently had been upset about losing his job and that he feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns. […]
Friends identified the suspect as Richard Poplawski, 23, but police would not immediately confirm his name. The gunman was arrested after a four-hour standoff, police said. […]
Edward Perkovic said Poplawski, his best friend, feared “the Obama gun ban that’s on the way” and “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon.”
It wouldn’t be fair to blame right-wing propaganda for Poplawski slaying these police officers. Plenty of people have heard the far-right talking points and only a small handful have been driven to violence. As John Cole noted this morning, “Sure, crazy people do crazy things. But that doesn’t make it responsible to encourage them, which is what a lot of really foolish people are doing right now for purely political reasons.”
Exactly. As David Neiwert, who documents these kinds of right-wing activities, recently reported, there was a lengthy segment on Fox News two weeks ago in which Glenn Beck and the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre insisted that Americans’ 2nd Amendment rights are “under attack” from the Obama administration. What’s more, as Neiwert noted this morning, the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ran a story just three days ago about “speculation that President Obama might pull the trigger on tighter regulations for gun ownership.” The article quoted a gun-store salesman raising the specter of a “confiscation of firearms” from the government.
Everyone would benefit if the right could just lower the temperature a bit.
