Tom Jackson: Jihadi wannabe shoots up Orlando; Obama blames us

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Once again, a great city that rightly prides itself on multicultural tolerance has been shredded by a fanatical hater whose worldview is rooted in 7th Century mysticism and hero worship.

London. Madrid. Paris. Brussels. Now, Orlando. America’s getaway destination. Home.

And once again, leaders of a political party with roots that trace to the Enlightenment are blaming the tools of destruction, not the backward extremism that put those instruments to evil use.

Thus, in an otherwise down market Monday morning, did gun stocks — Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger, in particular — surge. This is perfectly understandable. When certain of America’s leaders target firearms after the ideologically charged slaughter of unarmed innocents, Americans know they are not serious about eradicating the next potential triggerman’s vile inspiration.

Yes, I know. Among one-point-six-billion Muslims, only a statistically tiny portion are truly bad actors. But even if it’s only one percent, that’s a whole lot of radicalism for one small planet to manage.

Along those lines, it’s darn near impossible to manage that which you refuse even to identify. Alas, such is President Obama’s M.O. Once again the moment came upon him to make plain the war forced upon us, and once again he dashed to a nonsense prescription — we require more extensive regulation of inanimate objects — while aggressively ignoring the jihadi in the room.

What drivel. What insidious misdirection. Yes, we had a so-called “assault weapons” ban once upon a time, and the country didn’t collapse. Should we reinstate it? Only if we think meaningless flourishes will solve the raging trouble at hand. Studies indicate the ban made virtually no difference in gun crime. Bad dudes merely switched weapons of choice.

Wait. The president wasn’t finished. There was an outrage ahead.

Besides guns, Obama’s blame fell on, well, us. Really. Because, after all, in the president’s assessment, we all are denizens of the swamp that produced the execrable Omar Mateen. Obama:

“We need to demonstrate that we are defined more — as a country — by the way [the victims]lived their lives than by the hate of the man who took them from us.”

This blame-shifting is indefensible, even monstrous. A feverish Islamist extremist inflamed by ISIS acts on orders laid out plainly in sharia law and espoused by respected Muslim holy men, and Obama tells us to check our consciences.

Yes, the people who love “Will & Grace” and “Modern Family,” who at worst sighed in capitulation over the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling; and who adore Neil Patrick Harris playing heterosexual romantic leads — we are the ones who need to make plain what defines us.

That’s unreservedly disgusting. We didn’t establish a pattern of sweaty bigotry for Jews, African Americans, gays and women. We weren’t interviewed three times in two years by the FBI for linking ourselves to terror organizations and having had contact with a subsequent suicide bomber.

We didn’t perpetrate such violence on our spouses that they had to flee half the country away to feel safe. We didn’t make a 911 call to proclaim allegiance to ISIS before hauling a small arsenal into an Orlando nightspot and start shooting up the place.

That, and more, is all on Mateen, the vermin ISIS warrior/martyr wannabe. But that’s a subject too uncomfortable for President Obama, who called out hate and terror, but, when it came to honestly identifying the animating energy, flinched. Because blaming Americans is what he does.

Every time. Every damn time.

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Recovering sports columnist and former Tampa Tribune columnist Tom Jackson argues on behalf of thoughtful conservative principles as our best path forward. Fan of the Beach Boys, pulled-pork barbecue and days misspent at golf, Tom lives in New Tampa with his wife, two children and two yappy middle-aged dogs.

3 COMMENTS

  1. The tragedy in Orlando again brings focus on the damage that can be done by ANY person with a will to destroy – regardless of their politics, religion, or mental state – with an easily accessible weapon.

    I would argue that any comments by the President regarding guns and our lack of action to bring any kind of ‘control’ – but most certainly self-control – stems from a frustration of seeing Americans die en masse on a daily basis. Not in nightclubs, fifty at a time, but daily – at least dozens each and every day, across this country.

    You infer, in a superior tone, that (Muslim) women must flee their violent husbands and run away to feel safe as if we do not know such violence here. The realities of being an American woman, in the ‘safest’ nation, are that we routinely under attack at home, and killed in ‘mass murders’ – sometimes along with our CHILDREN, by our most often Christian and most often American husbands or partners – and most often with a gun.
    Where is the outrage – the American dedication to ‘protect the weak’, the underrepresented, the victimized – when our women and children are attaked and murdered here ‘at home’ – by the tens of thousands?

    Rapes are reported here at one every 6 minutes – and they are grossly underreported. Since 2012, death (of women) by domestic violence (partners), here in the United States, has claimed more lives than all of the victims of 9/11 and of the soldiers killed in our ‘war on terror’ combined. Women here most often are ‘stuck’ in an abusive situation because of poverty. Do they ‘flee to other nations to escape abuse’? No – there is nowhere to flee without help – and really ‘no safe place’. Most of the ‘mass murders’ against mothers and children together, occur after a woman does leave – when she ‘moves on’ – and her ex comes back to exact revenge at all costs. This act of terror happens all too frequently here – and is not recognized for what it is.

    There are certainly differences between us and what is happening world-wide, but you can be sure that we cannot look down on what is happening in any other country, by any kind of person, when we are busy looking over what is happening in ours.

    The attack in Orlando was carried out by a madman who connected with and promoted a terroristic viewpoint in order to justify the violent urges that he has apparently always had. But how do we explain the others – the nearly 15,000 deaths in this country committed by madmen who we dismiss as ‘disturbed’, the terrorists we sleep with and sit next to on Sundays – the one who looks like us?

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