Charlie,
Is it just me, or have Thomas Friedman, Jimmy Kimmel, and everyone else claiming that Republicans would back gun control if a jihadist used a gun completely forgotten about the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting, the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11, committed using guns?
Friedman writes:
If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim … If only he had shouted “Allahu akbar” before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas … If only he had been a member of ISIS…
You mean like Orlando shooter Omar Mateen? This is not a hypothetical, far-fetched scenario. It happened a little more than a year ago!
Folks like Friedman and Kimmel are insisting that Republicans would behave differently if a jihadist killed lots of Americans with a gun… even though there’s this vivid, recent example, when Republicans were not suddenly swayed to support gun control because of the religion and ethnicity of the killer.
Republicans largely oppose gun control because they think it violates the Constitution, is ineffective, and would be nearly impossible to enforce. They don’t oppose it because they think it would be too harsh on white guys.