Suspect confirmed as Robert L. Dear date of birth of 4/16/1958 pic.twitter.com/4v2GtIsUgT
— Springs Police (@CSPDPIO) November 28, 2015
We don’t yet definitively know the reasons why Robert Lewis Dear barricaded himself in a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, started shooting, ultimately killing two civilians and a police officer. What is known, at least thus far, makes it difficult to address a motive with any authority, though he did make it clear to police that he hates Barack Obama. He also made as yet unspecified comments about abortion. More to come on that, to be certain.
All that said, there’s as yet no clear connection that can be made between radical anti-abortion activists and Dear. Anti-abortion groups are falling all over themselves to disavow Dear and refuse any responsibility for the attack. Even so, no reasonable person could claim that something like what happened in Colorado Springs wasn’t inevitable. The anti-abortion movement is chock full of lunatics willing to go to virtually any length to stop abortions from taking place. Robert Lewis Dear appears to have done exactly that.
When you combine the easy availability of guns with people who clearly have profound mental health issues, there are many things that can happen…and few of them are good. In Dear’s case, this may have been a clearly planned attack intended (at least in his mind) to end abortion. Or it could have been someone with significant mental health issues acting out for reasons only he can articulate. Whatever the case or the reason(s), a policeman and two innocent civilians lost their lives. The Far Right will be (and already is) making the case that it’s too soon to politicize what’s undeniably a tragedy. To these Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes ©, “too soon” is merely code for their ongoing efforts to deflect the conversation away from the need for common sense gun control.
This is yet another instance of looking at a mass shooting and asking, “When will enough people have died for Congress to take action?” It’s a question demanding to be asked, yet Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © continue to refuse to even discuss setting a framework for addressing what’s arguably the greatest crisis this country faces.
Once again, the President is asking for common sense gun control…and once again, Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © are laughing in his face. The National Rifle Association (and, not surprisingly, Republican Presidential candidates) have been conspicuously silent in the wake of the Colorado Springs shooting. Nor have they addressed the fact that between 2004-2014, more than 2000 people on the federal government’s terrorist watch list were about to LEGALLY purchase guns. Nor will they address (or allow to be addressed) the reality that the vast majority of terrorist attack on U.S. soil are undertaken by Conservative White Christian males.
So when will we decide that too many innocents have already died, and that it’s time to take this country back from the callous, stone cold, Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © who care far more about guns that human life?
When will we tire of asking the same question over and over and over…and finally scream, “ENOUGH!!!”? When will we take our country back from the zealots, haters, bigots, homophobes, and Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes ©? We have it within our power to do so; if our Congressmen and women won’t do it on their own initiative we must demand it of them. If they refuse, we can use the power of the ballot box to make ourselves clear. The vast majority of American favor common sense gun control; the question is when that vast majority will realize the power it possesses and put it to use.
It’s not too soon.
