The Washington Post editorial board used the tragedy on Tuesday morning, June 10, in Troutdale, Oregon -- where a 15-year-old boy armed with an AR-15 rifle shot and killed a 14-year-old student before taking his own life -- to declare in a June 13 editorial that “such senseless violence shouldn't happen” and put the blame on Congress for not passing “any kind of responsible gun control.”
“A Congress that’s more terrified of the National Rifle Association than another Sandy Hook needs to be pushed to change by a public willing to vote out those who won’t act,” the editors declared. “It’s clear from the countless locales that have been scarred by gun violence that no place is really safe.”
The editorial included a list of places where such tragedies should not have occurred: gun-free zones in Troutdale, Newtown, Columbine, Blacksburg, Seattle, and the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard,” where firearms were used to commit crimes.
However, the board also pointed to crimes that were committed in areas without gun-free zones: Tucson, Las Vegas and Santa Barbara.
Hours after Tuesday’s shooting at Troutdale’s Reynolds High School, president Barack Obama “gave voice to the frustration of not being able to get gun control legislation passed” because “Congress refuses -- even in the face of increasingly frequent shootings -- to even consider, let alone enact,” any legislation that would further restrict a person's access to guns.
Obama said it was “stunning” to him that Congress failed to tighten gun laws in the aftermath of the 2012 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
“Here was a situation in which 20 children -- most of them 6 years old -- were gunned down,” the editors stated, and “Congress couldn’t muster the courage to oppose the gun lobby and pass even modest legislation, supported by a majority of Americans, to require universal background checks for all gun purchases.”
Obama’s comments during a question-and-answer session “were his most extensive remarks on guns in recent months,” the board asserted. “Most telling was how he spoke about the almost numbing regularity of indiscriminate mass shootings in the country.
“We’re the only developed country on earth where this happens, and it happens now once a week, and it’s a one-day story. There’s no place else like this,” he said. “This is becoming the norm, and we take it for granted in ways that, as a parent, are terrifying to me.”
“As to suggestions by some opponents of gun control that shortcomings in the country’s mental-health system are to blame,” the president noted that “the United States 'does not have a monopoly on crazy people,' only on the unfettered access to weapons it gives people capable of doing unbelievable damage.”
As NewsBusters previously reported, that day's edition of MSNBC's The Cycle had security and criminal investigation expert Anthony Roman as a panelist. While most of the discussion was subdued, Roman jumped into the fray by asserting: “These shootings are just becoming far too prevalent here, and it's gone beyond the call for gun control. It's gone to a scream for gun control!”
All three channels in the “mainstream media” reported on the incident the following morning.
While ABC, CBS and NBC all promoted Obama’s statement, NBC’s Today was the most enthusiastic, with Savannah Guthrie noting the president “had some pretty strong words” and hyped the “pretty extraordinary moment” following the shooting.
On ABC’s Good Morning America, Robin Roberts referred to the incident as part of a “national crisis” before echoing Obama's comment that “the country should be ashamed by the growing epidemic.”
Meanwhile, on CBS This Morning, co-host Norah O'Donnell opened the show by stating: “President Obama loses his patience after another deadly school shooting.” She also noted the fact that the Democratic occupant of the White House used an online chat regarding the shooting to declare “we should be ashamed of that.”
The Post's editorial is a perfect example of the liberal philosophy to “never let a tragedy go to waste.” As always, there was no mention of the times when guns have been used to halt crimes and rescue potential victims.
We can only wonder how many members of the editorial board possess guns of their own. I'm certain that number would be an interesting one.
