Mass shootings and the 2020 Presidential campaign

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President Donald Trump on Monday condemned “racism, bigotry and white supremacy” in the wake of two weekend mass shootings that killed 31 people and wounded dozens.

In remarks from the White House, the president provided a list of policies intended to address mass shootings. Earlier on Twitter, he suggested that lawmakers pass legislation tying immigration reform to background checks for gun purchases.

In his later comments, he backed “red flag” laws that allow guns to be removed from individuals deemed high risk, called for mass shooters to be given the death penalty and vowed to address radicalization through the internet and social media.

But Trump did not mention his prior call for background checks — an overwhelmingly popular gun control measure that has already passed the Democrat-controlled House — in his roughly 10-minute remarks.

The National Rifle Association, which also was not mentioned in the speech, has come out in favor of red flag laws under certain conditions.

Americans are “sickened by this monstrous evil, the cruelty, the hatred, the malice, the bloodshed and the terror,” Trump said.

“Hate has no place in America, … hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart and devours the soul,” Trump said.

President Trump’s remarks Monday condemning the horrific mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton did little to quell the anger from 2020 Democratic hopefuls who are blaming his rhetoric as well as inaction on gun control in part for the violence, as they level uncensored attacks on the president and Republicans in Congress.

In the wake of the back-to-back mass shootings that left at least 31 dead, the Democratic presidential candidates have dropped the usual decorum surrounding even tense policy debates like gun control, using coarse language to demonstrate their exasperation over the GOP response to gun violence and their calls for new gun control measures.

“Listening to the president,” New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said Monday after Trump’s speech, in comments shared on Twitter by his campaign manager. “Such a bulls—t soup of ineffective words.”

Another candidate, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, on Monday tweeted “Fck me” after Trump mistakenly, at one point in his speech, said the Ohio shooting took place in Toledo. (It happened in Dayton.)

For Ryan, the language appears to be part of a deliberate approach: Earlier Monday, the longshot candidate went on CNN and tore into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, saying, "Mitch McConnell needs to get off his a-- and do something.” On Sunday, he also tweeted, “Republicans need to get their s--- together and stop pandering to the NRA. Period.”

Other Democrats trying to weigh in amid a storm of political reaction, like former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, are taking a similar approach. O’Rourke, who represented El Paso, the site of the shooting in Texas on Saturday, expressed his unvarnished anger when asked if he thinks Trump can make the situation better.

“What do you think?” O’Rourke reportedly shot back at the press. “You know the s--- he’s been saying. He’s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I don’t know, like, members of the press, what the f---?”

But in a statement that riled Democrats, he said: “Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun."

ormer Vice President Joe Biden earlier had replied to Trump’s early morning tweet about action on gun control in which he suggested “perhaps marrying this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform.”

Immigration, Biden tweeted, isn’t the problem. “White nationalism is the problem. America’s inaction on gun safety legislation is the problem,” he wrote. “It’s time to put the politics aside and pass universal background checks and an assault weapons ban. Lives depend on it.”

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey called the president weak and criticized his continuing suggestions that mental illness is to blame in mass shootings, including those in which people of color or various religions were targeted. “Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun,” Trump said.

“White supremacy is not a mental illness,” Booker tweeted, “and guns are a tool that white supremacists use to fulfill their hate.”

Elizabeth Warren
@ewarren

"White supremacy is not a mental illness. We need to call it what it is: Domestic terrorism. And we need to call out Donald Trump for amplifying these deadly ideologies"

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called on the president to “open your eyes and grow a damn spine.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont called on Trump to stop his “hatred, divisiveness and anti-immigrant rhetoric.” Sanders, in a tweet addressing the president, cited the lack of action by the GOP-controlled Senate on bills that would expand background checks.

Julián Castro

"Donald Trump is unfit to lead our nation. His words could not be more hollow. He says “we must condemn racism, bigotry and white nationalism”—but often serves as their national spokesperson.In this national emergency, our president is morally bankrupt. We deserve better"

Kamala Harris
@KamalaHarris
Gilroy, California.
El Paso, Texas.
Dayton, Ohio.

Let’s speak truth: Gun violence is a national emergency in our country."

Seth Moulton
@sethmoulton
"Things the president blamed for mass shootings:
1. The internet
2. The media
3. Video games

Things he did not blame:
1. Republicans
2. His racist rhetoric"

Moulton, who served in the Marines, also replied to a tweet in which a woman posted a picture of a long rifle lying on a laptop in the passenger seat of a vehicle. “This is my rifle. Just a regular rifle, no assault in front of it. Leave it alone,” the woman wrote.

“I carried an assault rifle in Iraq, just like that one,” Moulton replied. “I don’t need it here and neither do you. Weapons of war have no place on our streets or in your car.”

Seems quite odd to me that we look to political leaders to solve a social problem of mass shootings. That we always look for other people to solve these problems for us is why they exist and continue to grow worse.

As larger numbers of people are told they don't fit in, that they have "disorders" and have authority figures telling them that they are broken, the more this will continue to happen.

People pretend to have tolerance because they are open to people looking different than one another but it seems the tolerance for opposing points of view has all but disappeared.

These days, the word “bigot” is used more to shut down opposing views than to describe actual bigots.

Plus the “If you disagree with me, you hate me” mindset, and being deathly afraid of offending people make it almost impossible to reasonably discuss the big issues.