“ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A lone gunman who was said to be distraught over President Trump’s election opened fire on members of the Republican congressional baseball team at a practice field in this Washington suburb on Wednesday, using a rifle to shower the field with bullets that struck four people, including Steve Scalise, the majority whip of the House of Representatives.
Mr. Trump, in a televised statement from the White House, condemned the “very, very brutal assault” and said the gunman had died after a shootout with the police. Law enforcement authorities identified him as James T. Hodgkinson, 66, from Belleville, Ill., a suburb of St. Louis.
Two members of Mr. Scalise’s Capitol Police security detail were wounded as they exchanged fire with the gunman in what lawmakers described as several chaotic, terror-filled minutes that turned the baseball practice into an early-morning nightmare. One was wounded by gunfire, and one suffered other, minor injuries.”
Editorial
I have no sympathy for Steve Scalise. This is a man who voted against healthcare funding for 9/11 first responders, takes donations from the NRA, and is part of the GOP plan to gut Obamacare.
The man who shot him had no business owning a gun of any kind, much less the assault rifle he was armed with that day. Yet Scalise has opposed any sort of gun regulations, because he cares more about the wishes of the NRA and the fanatics he represents, instead of the thousands of Americans who are killed every year by gun violence.
Steve Scalise also has a comfortable relationship with white supremacists, and has described himself as “David Duke without the baggage.” He also represents the district that elected Duke to the Louisiana legislature, and addressed a Neo-Nazi convention in 2002.
The right-wing rhetoric for years has been a fever dream of conspiracies that President Obama was a secret Muslim intent on installing Sharia law and taking away people’s guns. Republican lawmakers, including Scalise, pushed this garbage at every opportunity and failed to call for calm and reason.
I’m obviously not condoning the actions of the man who shot Scalise, not by any stretch of the imagination. But the GOP is far and away most responsible for creating the toxic political climate that led to this incident. Now the chickens of the partisan maelstrom the GOP and their media cronies created have come home to roost, and only now do they want to cry foul when one of their members takes a rifle round to the hip.
I hope that in between doses of morphine and surgeries, Congressman Scalise finds his humanity and decency that he buried in the swamp many years ago. Maybe this will be his “Road to Damascus” where he realizes that being an NRA stooge and a partisan hack isn’t worth it any longer. We can hope, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
My prediction is that he will project everything that he is onto the Democrats and blame the actions of one sick man on the Democratic Party, or the left in general. I sincerely doubt he will take any responsibility for having a very big hand in creating the very atmosphere that gave rise to this act.