Pure hypocrisy: How progressives respond to gun crimes vs. illegal immigrant crime

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Mollie Tibbetts
A poster for missing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts hangs in the window of a local business, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in Brooklyn, Iowa. [Photo Credit: AP Photo | Charlie Neibergall]

Today another family mourns a senseless act of violence. The search for Mollie Tibbetts the 20-year-old college student whose disappearance has captivated the nation since July 18 after when she vanished going on her daily jog has come to a heartbreaking end. Cristhian Bahena Rivera, an illegal alien from Mexico, who was questioned by authorities after being caught on video following her in his car has led authorities to her body and confessed to her murder.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera
This undated photo provided by the Iowa Department of Public Safety shows Cristhian Bahena Rivera. Authorities said on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, that they have charged a man living in the U.S. illegally with murder in the death of Iowa college student, Mollie Tibbetts, who disappeared a month ago while jogging in a rural area. Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Rick Rahn said that Rivera, 24, was charged with murder in the death of Tibbetts. [Photo Credit: Iowa Department of Public Safety via AP]

Within moments of the news breaking that Rivera was an illegal immigrant advocates of secure borders began pointing to the case as another example of why tougher border security is needed. The White House tweeted a statement by President Donald Trump about it. He then retweeted it.

Let me be clear, in case you don’t already know my position: I believe we need increased border security and we need to enforce the laws we have by deporting those in the country illegally.

We should not reward those who have jumped ahead of those attempting to enter our nation legally by granting blanket amnesty to them or their children. We need comprehensive immigration reform for guest workers and we need to empower immigration officials to do more not less to protect legal citizens. We cannot afford to turn a blind eye to this growing problem. Illegal aliens are not all bad but they also aren’t all valedictorians. We need a clear and consistent way to address illegal aliens understanding that most if not all will have a personal story that will touch your heart and that that story isn’t enough for us to disregard our immigration laws altogether.

Back to today’s arguments: The jump from the crime at hand to the policy implications of border control that happen whenever an illegal is involved in a high profile case is as tasteless to me as when gun control groups seize upon gun crimes to push their agenda. I’m not sure what an appropriate length of time is to address the issue but within minutes seems cold on both accounts. That said there is a blatant hypocrisy in the way that people from the left and right react to crime and the criminals who commit them.

With nearly every high profile gun crime comes immediate calls for gun control but in the case of acts of violence by illegal immigrants those very same people shout that an entire group shouldn’t be persecuted for the acts of one or a few. Which is it? Can one act or one person define an entire population? (The answer being no of course.) We need to address both issues gun crime and illegal immigration on their own. The questions we should be asking for gun crime isn’t how to add regulations it’s actually the same one we should be asking about immigration: How do we enforce the laws we have? How do we identify and stop those who are at the highest risk for committing crimes? How do we make our nation safer?

It is through rational policy debate not emotionally charged finger pointing that we will solve our toughest problems.

Let me bottom line it for you: If you think we need to regulate guns every time there’s a gun crime but call foul when people point to closing the borders when illegal aliens commit crimes you might be hypocrite but in both cases you’re not making us any closer to solving the problem either. We can do better and we should for the victims of all crime.