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In his pointed, mean-spirited inauguration address, the president cited “crime, gangs and drugs” as “American carnage,” which he was uniquely qualified to address.
He has also regularly telegraphed his contempt for Muslims, pledging to bar them from entry to our country as he has stereotyped them and linked them to terror attacks.
He most certainly has not expressed or implied that a serious threat exists from individuals like the homegrown killer who was able to amass an arsenal of lethal weapons, mowing down within minutes hundreds of innocent civilians at a country music concert in Las Vegas, slaughtering 58 of them.
Imagine how quickly the bombastic and hateful tweets would have flowed had the mass murderer been a dark-skinned individual who shouted “Allahu Akbar!” as he went about his killing spree.
Setting aside for the moment the issue of whether any civilian should be able to acquire an unlimited number of weapons of war that are designed to kill human beings, I wonder if we will ever recognize that, again and again, the greatest threat to us and to our safety is the deranged domestic lone wolf killer, usually a man with a perceived grievance who believes that he will live all eternity in glory if he massacres his foes before his life is snuffed out.
Our leaders ignore the elephant in the room at our peril. We can expect the body count to continue to rise.