Only Ghouls Use Tragedies To Score Political Points
When news of the mass shooting in a Buffalo supermarket broke on Saturday, Americans recoiled in horror.
The fact that the “suspect” was an 18-year-old white man who traveled 200 miles from his home to a Tops market in a predominantly African-American section of Buffalo apparently so he could kill black people made it even more grotesque.
In fact, this psycho killed 10 people, shot 13. All but two were African-American.
Americans of all races reacted with revulsion to the killings. To think that ordinary people on everyday errands were cut down and murdered in cold blood is to contemplate pure evil.
Among those killed was retired police officer Aaron Salter who attempted to stop the suspect, Payton Gendron. Then there was 86-year-old Ruth Winfield who’d just visited her husband in a nursing home and was picking up groceries. This woman, the oldest victim, didn’t deserve to die in a hail of gunfire on the floor of a supermarket.
Neither did any of the others. And the list of the dead is heartbreaking.
Sadness, profound sadness, spread across the nation at the loss of more innocent lives to yet another monster.
As details about the shooter emerged, many of us questioned how he’d been able to purchase a gun, given his threats of shooting up a high school around graduation last June. Those threats caught the attention of authorities and he was questioned, sent to a mental health facility and briefly detained. Given New York’s Red Flag law it’s hard to understand why this creature wasn’t on a list that prevented him from buying firearms.
If you ever wanted proof that politicians aren’t like normal people, that they don’t think as we do, they don’t have human emotions like ours, take a look at what State Sen. Louise Lucas Tweeted in the aftermath of the massacre:
What is wrong with this woman? Is her vitriol so uncontrollable, her loathing for Gov. Glenn Youngkin so overwhelming, that her first instinct upon learning of the tragedy is to spew ghoulish insinuations that the governor didn’t care about the killings or worse, somehow supports mass murder?
Low, even for her.
Is it required that every politician everywhere make a statement - or Tweet - when there’s a tragedy? I don’t recall Lucas demanding that Youngkin act when a 62-year-old black suspect went on a shooting spree in a Brooklyn subway station last month shooting 10 and injuring another 13 people.
Can’t we just assume that we all despair over such brutal acts? Is that such a leap?
It would be nice if politicians could exercise self-control in these situations and dig deep to find some human decency.
Too often, when there’s a tragedy, politicians see nothing but an opportunity to score political points.
Shame on them.
