Well, that didn’t take long. As Americans were still reeling from the latest gun massacre, right-wingers wasted no time blaming liberals, Hollywood, and gay marriage for all shooting rampages. As usually, the facts are decidedly against wingnuts.
It’s been almost a week since 22-year-old Elliot Rodger stabbed his roommates to death, and sped through Isla Vista, California, shooting at bystanders, fatally shooting three people, wounding thirteen more, and exchanging gunfire with police before turning a gun on himself. In the aftermath, the media and others have poured over Rodger’s written and video manifestoes, as well as his racist and misogynistic comments in online forum to figure out what drove the latest disturbed young man with easy access to guns to start shooting.
Right-winger didn’t have to wonder. They just knew.
- Rush Limbaugh blames the movie “The Hunger Games,” on which Rodger’s father worked as a unit director, for the shooting spree.
- Tom Perkins of the Family Research Council managed to link the Isla Vista shooting to … wait for it … Obamacare.
- Meanwhile Ken Blackwell, also from FRC, blamed the Isla Vista shooting on same-sex marriage laws.
- Fox News “expert” Dr. Robi Ludwig said that “homosexual impulses” let to Rodger’s homicidal impulses.
- Tom Snyder and Ted Baehr of Movieguide said “anti-Christian bigotry” was to blame for Rodger’s shooting spree.
- Sam Wurzelbacher — who is neither a “Joe” nor a plumber — penned a letter informing the families of Rodger’s victims that, “Your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights.
- Glenn Beck blamed Rodger’s shooting spree on Hollywood, video games, and progressives … like Teddy Roosevelt.
Just days before the Isla Vita shootings, Arizona Republican House candidate Gary Kiehne said that Democrats were behind most mass shootings. During a Republican primary debate, Kiehne informed the audience that, “99 percent of (mass shootings) have been by Democrats pulling their guns out and shooting people.”
Several headlines later, Kiehne apologized. but he’s obviously not the only right-winger who believes this stuff. The truth is conservatives are more likely to fit the profile and have the necessary arsenal. As David Frum noted:
Republicans are nearly twice as likely to own a gun as Democrats are.
White Americans are twice as likely to own a gun as nonwhite Americans.
Among Americans under age 30, only about one in five owns a gun. Among Americans over age 50, one in three owns a gun.
Nearly half of men own a gun; only 13 percent of women do.
Southerners are 50 percent more likely to own a gun than Easterners, the South being the most gun-owning region and the East being the least.
Add it all up, and the core gun constituency looks a lot like the Tea Party on the firing range: Two-thirds of American households own no guns at all. The vast majority of households that own a gun own only one. Opposing them, a small minority—about 6 percent of American households—have amassed 65 percent of the nation’s privately owned firearms. That group is very white, very Southern, and very conservative indeed.
This small group is seized by a profound sense of loss and alienation from the American majority.
Here’s the best of the worst in wingnuttia this week:
- While the rest of America mourns the loss of Maya Angelou’s great poetic voice, wingnuts at the National Review wasted no time ignoring he legacy, dismissing her literary achievements and trolling her mourning fans.
- Right-wing favorite Dr. Ben Carson said, during a Fox New interview, that “what’s happening with the veterans is a gift from God” — for anti-government conservatives.
- The American Family Association is not only urging its members not to buy the new Harvey Milk stamp released by the US Postal Service, but also not to open any mail bearing the stamp.
- Tens of people turned out for the Koch Brother’s answer to North Carolina’s popular Moral Monday’s protests. Attendees sat, subdued, and listened to boring speeches. There were no arrests.
- Pat Robertson, speaking on his “700 Club” television show, urged wives everywhere to reward their husbands with sex for helping with housework.
- Fox News host Brian Kilmeade advised men to show “respect” for the wives by challenging them to an argument and calling them “baby doll.”
- Glenn Beck’s “The Blaze TV” mocked concern about sexual assault on campus, by acting out sexual propositions and labeling each skit “RAPE.” Beck later defended and “doubled down” on the skits, because he claimed his father was sexually abused.
