HAJII AL-BADR  

12 June 2016 | Everybody Stake Your Positions!


This is how it goes whenever there is a mass shooting in America: how fast can political positions be taken before anyone knows what's actually going on?

As of this writing, the death toll from a shooting in Orlando is 50. That's fifty human beings who were killed by someone wielding an AR-15. That the shooter has been identified as a Muslim of Afghani descent, well, we already know what the Trumpkins are going to say: "Trump is right! Build that wall! Keep Muslims out!" No matter that the shooter apparently is American-born: fear and loathing takes on its own life. And right-wing nut jobs **love** body counts.

For left-wing nut jobs, they're in a more delicate quandary, as it usually goes with these stories. What do comfortable white liberals do when the shooter is a Muslim (a community they rush to defend from Islamophobia) and the targets are gay? Hmm, I believe the favored word is "nuance" here, so the pivot will be about easy access to guns. That the killer is a Muslim has no bearing (and I'm not suggesting that it does) because really, who can go out a get an assault or assault-style weapon with such ease? (Although I strongly suspect had the shooter been white, they're would have no problem using that to blame Donald Trump.)

Take a note here: both groups are looking to mine what they can from a mass murder, though they'll both deny it. This rapid, cynical posturing just shows how numb we've become to killing sprees.

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