When the attack on Republican lawmakers at a Congressional baseball practice occurred Wednesday, the nation again witnessed that a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. Yet rather than acknowledge that fact—and it is a fact—the left began blaming Congress for not passing more gun control, even as a Congressman was still bleeding on the field.
Think about it—people on the left responded immediately by blaming the victim for a violent crime that was carried out by a deranged left-wing zealot. The left’s reaction is the result of a complete abandonment of common decency. To them, somebody getting shot in a highly publicized setting is just another opportunity to push their gun control agenda.
In short, those on the left do not see people; they see an opportunity to advance their cause.
But this is how ideologues conduct themselves: They put the success of their ideology above the safety and well-being of people. They will even put their ideology above the safety and well-being of the very people they claim to be protecting. That is why the late Russell Kirk, a man of letters who was steeped in learning, warned again and again that ideologues were the most dangerous of individuals—that they tend to use their power or positions of prominence to harm the very people they claim to cherish.
But the left is not listening to people like Kirk. Instead, they are listening to the very ideologues he warned about. Trump haters push protests past the limit of decency, with media fanning the hateful flames. People like Kathy Griffin and those who produce New York Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park series, whose goal is to divide the country, then use the division to their political benefit. Such division births animosity, which grows into hatred that can erupt into the kind of violence we saw when 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson opened fire on the GOP lawmakers.
To them, somebody getting shot in a highly publicized setting is just another opportunity to push their gun control agenda.Division necessarily produces some degree of animosity between the divided parties. History bears this out. While politicians on the left have frequently stoked divisions in our country based on race, income or religion, today’s ideologues stoke division based on all these things combined. The outcome—violence, violence and more violence.
In fact, criminal violence is so random these days, you never know when or where an attack may occur. It could be at a nightclub, a church, a community college, a convenience store, your own home or your place of employment. Today it was at a Congressional baseball practice. And no matter what the left tweets or how many times they tweet it, the only thing that stopped more carnage was a good guy with a gun.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, is the coach of the Congressional baseball team. He was present when the attack occurred. Breitbart News quoted Barton, saying:
Our prayers are to the people who were wounded and our thanks are to the police officers, including the Alexandria Police, who arrived very quickly, and who attacked—and I can’t emphasize this enough—they attacked the shooter, and that saved our lives.
But as the old saying goes, “Haters gonna hate.” And so despite Barton’s firsthand account of how good guys with guns stopped a bad guy with a gun today, the left is trying to spin the attack into a push for more gun control—into putting even more limits on law-abiding citizens’ ability to acquire and possess the guns they need for self-defense.
The left has created a climate in which violence is imminent; the divisions they foster and maintain to be elected to office—or to preserve their Hollywood and media fiefdoms—are coming back to haunt us in real time. Shame on them for exploiting the very violence their ideology births; for seeking to spin a heinous crime into another gun control law.
Our focus should be that of Rep. Barton. God bless those who were wounded. God bless their families as well.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at [email protected].
