Tweet du Jour

No, it's not from Glorious Leader. Next best thing:

With thanks to commenter Boreal at Joe.My.God.

Today's Must-Read: Shooting Yourself in the Foot

This is an interesting story via Spocko at Hullabaloo, illustrating how not to lobby for legislation you favor:

In March gun-rights activist Chris McNutt posted rants on Facebook about lack of movement on a Texas bill allowing gun owners to legally carry handguns without obtaining a state-issued license. McNutt, executive director of Texas Gun Rights, then drove to Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen's home about 50 miles south of Houston while Bonnen was in Austin and his wife and teenage sons were home. McNutt also visited the homes of Reps. Dustin Burrows of Lubbock and Four Price of Amarillo. . . .

After The Facts reported that Department of Public Safety troopers stopped Chris McNutt, executive director of Texas Gun Rights, in Bonnen’s neighborhood on March 27 Speaker Bonnen issued a written statement condemning the actions and declaring "Their issue is dead."  Advocate’s actions kill bill allowing no-permit gun carry The Statesman Bonnen’s statement came

Yes, they did kill the bill. It's an interesting read, with some detail on how these idiots think, if you want to call it that.

Sidebar: I've been binge-watching Midsomer Murders on Netflix. It's a series of murder mysteries set in the mythical Midsomer County in the English midlands, and one thing struck me last evening: it was one of the very rare appearances of a handgun. If guns appear at all, they are hunting rifles, and yet I find myself thinking periodically, as the action heats up, "If this were an American series, bullets would be flying." And yet the criminals are apprehended and sent off to their just deserts, and no one gets shot.

Yes, you can have law and order even if people aren't packing heat.

The Lower Depths (Updated)

Maybe we'd be better off if Trump just didn't make statements on tragic events:

President Donald Trump responded to the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue which resulted in multiple fatalities by blaming the synagogue for not having armed guards inside.

The gunman shot at least three armed police officers, but Trump did not appear to account for that in his remarks. Here is what he said to reporters:

This is a case where if they had an armed guard inside, they might have been able to stop him immediately...maybe there would be nobody killed.

And let's all remember whose campaign for president got $30 million from the NRA.

And in what kind of country do you hire armed guards to protect you at worship? Just for some perspective:

Donald Trump on Pittsburgh shooting at synagogue: “To see this happening again and again and again, it's just a shame.”

He's asked if there's anything that can be done: “Look at the violence all over the world. The world is violent. The world is a violent world." pic.twitter.com/lx4HfBmThf

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) October 27, 2018

Via Joe.My.God.

Let's face it, this is typical of Trump, and he's not going to change: he doesn't care about anyone but himself (and I'm very serious about that -- I have no doubt that he'd cut his children loose -- even Ivanka -- if he felt threatened enough). And let's be very plain about it: this is his doing. No, he didn't create this kind of toxic atmosphere -- that honor belongs to much more intelligent people than he is -- but he capitalized on it, and continues to do so, because it reflects his own thinking and resonates with the worst we have to offer: he's one of them, a bully with thin skin and a severe ego deficit:

President Donald Trump is refusing to acknowledge his role in this week's terror attacks which culminated in Friday afternoon's arrest of an anti-Democratic extremist Trump-supporting suspect.

"Not at all, no. There is no blame. There is no anything," the President told reporters late Friday afternoon from the White House lawn. He added that the suspect, Cesar Sayoc, merely is "a person that preferred me over others."

. . .

Trump went as far as to commend himself, saying he's "been toned down, if you want to know the truth."

"I could really tone it up, because the media has been extremely unfair to me and the Republican Party," President Trump told reporters. "The media has been unbelievably unfair to Republicans & certainly to me."

Anything that's not slavish adoration is "unfair."

Footnote: As might be expected, reactions to Trump's comments have been less than positive.

Ann Laurie at Balloon Juice takes the press to task, as well. The zinger:

the difference between the trump administration and isis is that isis accepts responsibility for the attacks it inspires

— m i t h (@ManInTheHoody) October 27, 2018

Update: And just to make sure the target is clear:

For the “both sides” hall of fame, here’s the New York Times insinuating that the people who received the bombs might have deserved it. Notable that they left CNN out of the piece. https://t.co/LzTwawdlA6

— Adam Jentleson 🎈 (@AJentleson) October 26, 2018

Lo! How the mighty have fallen!

Update II: And from Tom Levenson, a look at history and complicity:

Thirty six years ago, on September 12, 1982, a Lebanese Maronite militia invaded two refugee camps occupied by Palestinians. As The New York Times remembered on the 30th anniversary of the disaster,

In the ensuing three-day rampage, the militia, linked to the Maronite Christian Phalange Party, raped, killed and dismembered at least 800 civilians, while Israeli flares illuminated the camps’ narrow and darkened alleyways. Nearly all of the dead were women, children and elderly men.

That reference to the flares points to the miserable truth behind the blood and broken bodies: the people on the spot, those militiamen handled the killing. They pulled the triggers, broke the women, shattered the bodies. They were guilty of those crimes; they did the worst that human beings can do.

But there were others who stood aside, hands nominally clean while the predictable result of their actions and their studied inactions played out in Sabra and Shatila.

After the fact, the Israeli government ordered an investigation into the massacres, and they got a real one. It concluded that

Israeli leaders were “indirectly responsible” for the killings and that Ariel Sharon, then the defense minister and later prime minister, bore “personal responsibility” for failing to prevent them.

Sharon didn’t fire a single shot; no blood spattered the shoes of his colleagues, and the Israeli soldiers on the front lines in Lebanon did nothing more than stay out of the way. But as the report concluded, those in charge in Israeli knew what would happen if the Maronite militias gained free rein in the camps, and they let events unfold anyway. They were guilty not of murder, but of enabling the killings, of giving permission for an atrocity.

Fast forward to 2018 and a "leader" who gives permission for the unhinged and delusional to commit atrocities against their (his) "enemies."

For Sure, We Should Arm Teachers

One of Trump's (actually, the NRA's) more insane ideas: let's arm the teachers so they can . . . what? Well, here's one scenario:

A Georgia high school teacher is facing a number of charges after he barricaded himself inside an empty classroom and fired a handgun while students stood outside the door, authorities said Wednesday.

The shooting, which took place around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, led to a frantic lockdown at Dalton High School. One student suffered a minor ankle injury while running down the halls, police said at a press conference.

Dalton police spokesman Bruce Frazier said the teacher, identified as social studies teacher Jesse Randal Davidson, 53, locked himself inside of the room and refused to allow students inside.

“When the principal put a key in the door to try to unlock the classroom, Mr. Davidson apparently fired a shot from a handgun through an exterior window of the classroom. It does not appear that it was aimed at anybody,” Frazier said at a press conference.

It doesn't take much imagination to transpose the teacher's actions to a classroom full of students.

Needless to say, teachers are vehemently opposed to the idea, as are school administrators and just about everyone else who has any experience with, for example, being in a combat situation. It's not a popular idea -- except, of course, with the NRA and their wholly-owned subsidiaries in Congress and various state governments.

Via Hullabaloo.

Be Afraid. Be Vewwy Afraid. (Update)

That's the gist of what is the worst response to the Las Vegas massacre that I've seen so far. From Sen. John Thune (R-NRA):

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) on Tuesday responded to calls for increased gun control after the massacre in Las Vegas by telling reporters that shooting victims had a responsibility to protect themselves from gunfire.

"It sounds like [the shooter] used conversion kits and other things, you know, to make the weapons more lethal," Thune reportedly told MSNBC's Hallie Jackson. "We'll look at the facts when we get them all in here. I think a lot of us want to do everything we can to prevent tragedies like that from happening again."

But Thune shied away from the topic of gun control, arguing, "[I]t's an open society and it's hard to prevent anything."

Instead, the Republican senator offered advice to potential victims.

"I think people are going to have to take steps in their own lives to take precautions," he opined. "To protect themselves. And in situations like that, you know, try to stay safe. As somebody said -- get small."

This is actually right in line with the Republican playbook of the past -- gods, how many years: Be afraid. Be afraid of the Soviet Union, be afraid of China, be afraid of Muslim terrorists, be afraid of undocumented immigrants, be afraid of "those" people.

And of course, if you get mowed down while out to see a movie, or out at a club with your friends, or out at a music festival -- or sitting in your classroom at school -- it's your fault for not taking precautions.

"I think a lot of us want to do everything we can to prevent tragedies like that from happening again." He should have choked on that line. The point is, Republicans don't give a damn -- even when it's one of them in the crosshairs. Digby has a short, pungent look at their priorities.

It starts to seem as though we do have the right president for the times: the whole damned country's been turned into a game show -- the winner is the one with the highest body count.

Update: Digby has a good piece on Trump and his reaction to mass killings. It's instructive in pointing out the racial/ethnic bias in Trump's reaction (which should come as no surprise), but it also fits the general right-wing script:

But the sad truth is that as with the NRA, which traditionally goes silent after each horrifying act of mass gun violence, the only enemy available for him to blame for all this is a dead white man and the lethal arsenal he legally acquired to shoot down 600 people. And in Donald Trump's mind that's "just the way the world works."

So I guess we should all just get used to planning our daily lives on the assumption that some deranged white guy is going to use us for target practice.

Today's Must-Read: Shut Down the Pump!

From Digby, in the wake of another shooting*, a solid take on gun control laws and why we need them:

On 7 September 1854, Snow took his research to the town officials and convinced them to take the handle off the pump, making it impossible to draw water. The officials were reluctant to believe him, but took the handle off as a trial only to find the outbreak of cholera almost immediately trickled to a stop. Little by little, people who had left their homes and businesses in the Broad Street area out of fear of getting cholera began to return.

It took many more years before it was widely accepted that cholera came from the water. (In fact, it took a priest trying to prove that it was God's will to finally do it!)

But here's the relevant takeaway: they didn't need to cure the disease to end the epidemic. What ended it was shutting down the pump.

(Emphasis in original.)

Yes, it really is about gun control. Read it.

* The Republicans, of course, are blaming the Democrats' "violent rhetoric" for the shooting, which targeted a Republican congressman. I'm not going to list them -- they all fall under the category of disgusting people -- but all you need to do is surf a bit. The New Civil Rights Movement has several stories on this.

Today in Gun Control

Via Joe.My.God., this:

Congress on Wednesday sent President Donald Trump legislation blocking an Obama-era rule designed to keep guns out of the hands of certain mentally disabled people.

On a vote of 57-43, the Senate backed the resolution, just one of several early steps by the Republican-led Congress to undo regulations implemented by former President Barack Obama. The House had passed the measure earlier this year. The White House has signaled Trump will sign the legislation.

The Obama rule would have prevented an estimated 75,000 people with mental disorders from being able to purchase a firearm. It was crafted as part of Obama's efforts to strengthen the federal background check system in the wake of the 2012 massacre of 20 young students and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

States only get two senators; the NRA gets 57.

I'm at a loss for even guessing at a motivation for something like this. Out of control Obama-hatred? Fear of "real 'Murican" constituents? Stupidity?

On the gun rule, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, spearheaded the repeal effort, saying the regulation unfairly stigmatizes the disabled and infringes on their constitutional right to bear arms. He said that the mental disorders covered through the regulation are filled with "vague characteristics that do not fit into the federal mentally defective standard" prohibiting someone from buying or owning a gun.

Grassley cited eating and sleep disorders as examples of illnesses that could allow a beneficiary to be reported to the background check system if they also have a third party to manage their benefits.

Somehow, I can't really believe that Grassley is concerned with the constitutional rights of the mentally disabled.

Commenter juanjo54 at the Joe.My.God. post had the perfect response:

Dallas (Updated)

I know I haven't really commented all that much about the Dallas shooting: after wading through all the conflicting accounts, updates, second guesses, etc,. etc., etc. (which I'm sure you've been following anyway), my head was swimming. (Well, there was also trying to sort out the prokaryotes for the Saturday Science post, which you'll notice has been delayed -- until I figure out the relationships and hypothetical histories of the Archaea and Bacteria.)

At any rate, I think this sums up my reaction:

Update: I think it's time to highlight something the president said about the whole gun issue, via Digby:

And so we have to talk about [guns]. And as I've said before there is a way to talk about it that is consistent with our constitution and the 2nd Amendment. The problem is that even mention of it somehow evokes this kind of polarization. And you're right when it comes to this issue of gun safety there is polarization between a very intense minority and a majority of Americans who think we could be doing better when it comes to gun safety.

(Emphasis added.)

Another case of the tail wagging the dog. The gun freaks and other right-wingers are, of course, blaming everyone but guns, from Ben Carson (remember him?) accusing the president of "politicizing" the issue (and of course, thanks to that asshole Wayne LaPierre and his gun manufacturers' lobby, it is a political issue -- even most gun owners favor restrictions on gun ownership) to Fox News blaming the president for "hating cops" and Black Lives Matter for engaging in a peaceful demonstration -- well, you get the picture. (At this point, I'm ambivalent about BLM, mostly because of the hold-up they pulled at Toronto Pride, but that was a local chapter and in the case of Dallas, BLM is blameless.)

So, in less than a month we have two major mass shootings, but it's not because guns are readily available to any crazy person with a grudge against someone, whether real or imagined. Couldn't possibly be that.

This seems like an appropriate coda:

Dallas: A Stray Thought

Yeah, so the good guys had guns. Helped a lot, didn't it?

And, under the head "Great Minds Think Alike," I just ran across this piece by Digby:

After Newtown and Paris and every other mass shooting we were told that the answer to these problems is for more people to be armed so they can "take out" the bad guys when they start shooting. After Orlando, Donald Trump even mused on the stump that it would have been "beautiful":

“If we had people, where the bullets were going in the opposite direction, right smack between the eyes of this maniac. And this son of a bitch comes out and starts shooting and one of the people in that room happened to have (a gun) and goes boom. You know what, that would have been a beautiful, beautiful sight, folks.”

Well, in Dallas last night dozens if not hundreds of highly trained good guys with guns were unable to stop madmen from killing four of their own and injuring seven more. And it was anything but beautiful.

Point taken -- I wish.

(It occurs to me that Donald Trump is a prime example of the idea the evolution has a lot of dead ends.)

And, to offer a bit of perspective:

With thanks to Barry Sloane on Twitter.

Today in Gun Safety

Sometimes, as I'm surfing through the news in the morning, I run across stories that comment on each other. Let's start with this, from Digby:

Apparently at least 60 kids under 18 have accidentally killed themselves and or other people already this year. It's a horror story. Here's the latest.

A 2-year-old Indiana boy fatally shot himself Wednesday evening after discovering a gun in his mother’s purse, authorities said.

The boy retrieved the gun when his mother “momentarily stepped away,” leaving her purse on the kitchen counter, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said in a news release.

I don't think I need to comment on the idea of leaving a loaded gun around where a two-year-old can find it. C'mon, people -- kids get into everything, usually when you're not looking.

Karoli Kuns at Crooks and Liars had the same reaction I did to the "solution" proposed by an NRA apologist:

Mamas, please rush right out and get some toddler-size body armor for your little darlings, because the NRA has decided the best way to avoid getting shot by some lunatic (or responsible gun owner) is to wear body armor.

Your little darling will look adorbs in a size 4T bulletproof vest. I'll bet you can even find one with Hello Kitty on it.

Seriously -- this idiot -- someone named Colion Noir, which has got to be a pseudonym -- is actually suggesting that we all go out and buy body armor to keep from being killed by some 2nd Amendment nutcase. A sample:

Look, if you don’t like guns and want nothing to do with them, you have every right to make less than smart decisions with your life, but I can’t think of a more passive way to protect yourself from being shot than owning body armor. I’m not saying you have to channel your inner 50 Cent and wear a vest general purpose. But have armor in your home or bag, you have nothing to lose. You may not like guns or me for liking guns, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about your safety.

MediaMatters has a full post. It gets really, really bizarre.

Today in "More Guns!"

Words fail me:

An Oklahoma man who who shot a 14-year-old boy in the back while he was playing “ding-dong ditch” on New Year’s Eve has not been arrested for the shooting, reports NewsOne 6.

According to police, Cole Peyton said he and two friends were ringing doorbells and running away well after after midnight on New Year’s Eve. After ringing the bell at one house, one homeowner stepped out of his door and shot the teen once in the back and again in the arm as the honor student told his friends to run.

I was about to suggest that there should be some sort of psychological screening for potential gun purchasers, if only to establish that they display a certain degree of maturity and solid judgment, and then I remembered: this happened in Oklahoma.

Today's Must Watch

Rachel Maddow's report on a video from States United to Prevent Gun Violence:

Suddenly the NRA wants an investigation.

And I don't have anything to add.

Backlash?

The two articles linked by this post at Crooks and Liars seem to have the phenomenon neatly wrapped up. The first, from TPM, is one of those stories that makes my day:

Two Richmond, Va. open carry advocates organized a demonstration in the city's Carytown neighborhood on July 4, but they were the only two people to attend.

They invited more than 300 people on Facebook to walk down one of the city's main streets openly carrying handguns, rifles and long guns, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Organizer Jason Spitzer, a Chesterfield County steel mill worker, was unable to explain the low turnout.

"I don’t know why," he told the Times-Dispatch.

Spitzer said he thought Independence Day was the perfect day to "spread Constitutional awareness" and promote Second Amendment rights.

"But even if nobody came I’d still walk," he said. "It’s the Fourth of July and I love my country."

Somebody just doesn't get it. Of course, the idiot in charge seems to think that the only thing in the Constitution is the Second Amendment.

Oh, and just in case anyone didn't think that walking into a store or restaurant waving an assault rifle marks you as a real American hero, even the NRA gets it:

Even the National Rifle Association, which supports the legal open and concealed carrying of firearms, initially questioned the wisdom of the Texas tactics in a posting on its website.

“Let’s not mince words, not only is it rare, it’s downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself,” the article said.

“To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one’s cause, it can be downright scary. It makes folks who might normally be perfectly open-minded about firearms feel uncomfortable and question the motives of pro-gun advocates.”

Of course, the NRA later backpedaled like crazy -- somebody must have been less than pleased at that expression of common sense.

As far as I'm concerned, any guy who has to walk around waving a big gun has a couple of problems: 1) either he's got a really tiny dick, 2) he's completely lacking in anything remotely resembling empathy (meaning his emotional development stopped sometime around age two; 3) he's not getting enough attention; or 4) all of the above.

More Guns!

Last week's tally of accidental deaths from guns, by David Waldman at DailyKos:

This week's compilation includes three God-given-but-somehow-forgotten guns, four accidents while cleaning loaded guns (which nobody ever does, though I've now found 102 who've done it so far this year), two home invasion shootings, one NRA-certified instructor shooting himself, six law enforcement officer FAILs, two more turkey hunters shot, and 10 kids accidentally shot, nine of whom either shot themselves or were identifiably shot by other kids under the age of 16. The victims are (or were) ages 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14 and 14. All were accidentally shot within a seven-day span, from April 27th through May 3rd.

Here's the punchline:

The new twist on the kid shootings this week was, of course, that two of the kids shot and killed younger siblings with their own guns, as opposed to guns belonging to parents or guardians which they found around the house. I felt sure earlier in the week that we'd all be talking about the Mountain Home, Alaska 8-year-old who shot and killed his 5-year-old sister with the rifle he'd taken hunting the day before. But that was before—one day before—the Burkesville, Kentucky 5-year-old shot and killed his 2-year-old sister with the rifle he'd been given for his 5th birthday. The 9-year-old girl shot the very next day by her 7-year-old brother in Auburn, Washington, was, it seems, shot with a rifle belonging to third sibling.

Need I say more?

PS -- Waldman published updates on Saturdays.

Via Balloon Juice.

Sunday Grab Bag

Low energy week, but I thought I'd do a little catch-up on things that caught my eye.

First off, this morning, via Joe.My.God., this item -- the headline says it all:

Study: Belief in an angry God associated with variety of mental illnesses

Please note, however, that the researcher stresses that the study is examining correlation, not causation.

Speaking of correlations, check out this segment of Bill Maher's Real Time. I can't find the embed code for the video, so watch it at the link.

Maher remarked that it’s amazing how people think they can get away with anything when there is such a wide array of surveillance, and remarked that the reason the Boston bombers did not kill themselves is probably because they “don’t have the balls” of terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. Maher asked if the U.S. needs to be more like Israel in its response to terrorism, by just dealing with it effectively and then moving on as if nothing happened.

Maher also threw out this observation.

“Isn’t the takeaway here that there are many bad things that can happen in the world, for many bad reasons, but the winner and still champ is religion?”

Holmes pointed to Newtown as not being religiously-motivated, pointing to a warped psychology as a more important motivator of people who seek to terrorize and kill others. She found it odd that one of the bombers, after living in America for ten years, didn’t have a single American friend.

(Emphasis added.)

I didn't post about Boston because it was just too difficult to figure out what was actually happening -- news outlets reporting random tweets like they had some validity? Please -- and by the time I could figure out what was happening, it was over.

The usual suspects were out in full force on that one, too. This is sort of typical, a retweet by Gay Patriot, via Joe.My.God.:

Charles Johnson has a good sampling of Pamela Geller's bile at Little Green Footballs. That woman is really sick.

On the other hand, the President:

"When a tragedy like this happens … it's important that we do this right. That's why we have investigations. That's why we relentlessly gather the facts. That's why we have courts," he said. "That's why we take care not to rush to judgment -- not about motivations of individuals, certainly not about entire groups of people."

And Tony Perkins is trying desperately to remain relevant:

In the aftermath of horrible tragedies like Newtown, the government desperately wants to do something–even if that something is the wrong thing. There seems to be this notion, at least among liberals, that more laws will protect us–but as we all witnessed in Boston, that isn’t necessarily the case. The government can’t make us safer until it recognizes that the problem isn’t the instruments of violence–but the environment of it. Stronger background checks wouldn’t have prevented the deaths of three people at the finish line on Monday, any more than it would have stopped Floyd Corkins from walking into our lobby and shooting Leo Johnson.

If Congress wants to stop these tragedies, then it has to address the government’s own hostility to the institution of the family and organizations that can address the real problem: the human heart. As I’ve said before, America doesn’t need gun control, it needs self-control. And a Congress that actively discourages it–through abortion, family breakdown, sexual liberalism, or religious hostility–is only compounding the problem.

Anyone who thinks Perkins gives a damn about the human heart is living in a fantasy world. However, we may be getting a glimpse of his next target, now that the gay-bashing gig is bottoming out:

Of course, some will say–and I agree–that transforming the culture is the church’s job. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place at the table for Christians in the gun debate. Not only did Jesus tolerate weapons, he instructed His disciples to buy them! In Luke 22:36, we read, “He said to them… if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” Jesus did rebuke Peter for being too quick on the draw (John 18:11), recognizing that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal-but spiritual.

Why do I think that there's a substantial overlap between Second Amendment freaks and white supremacists (and don't forget, that's how Perkins got his start in politics)?

Speaking of gun control, how about our shining examples of leadership in the Senate? John Stewart has a very good analysis:

And John Oliver picks up the thread in this segment:

The comedy in this one comes from Van Cleave trying to make a coherent argument -- the man's a moron.

And how typical would it be for Perkins to jump from one losing cause to another?

That's enough for this morning -- at the rate I'm discovering insanity in the news, this post could go on forever, but I'll give you a break. But let's leave on a bright note: Rio de Janeiro has become the tenth Brazilian state to recognize same-sex marriages.

Looks like a nice place for a wedding.

(And note:  I figured out how to resize photos!  Yay!)

One Question

I've been seeing the reports of accidents at gun shows celebrating "Gun Appreciation Day" (although I see that the national campaign got rid of the white supremacist sponsors). Digby has a run-down here, but I have one question: Why in the hell were these guns loaded?

Compare and Contrast

In the wake of the shooting at the FRC offices in Washington, D.C. this morning, it's instructive to look at the responses. Via Metro Weekly, we get a good look.

First, about two dozen gay advocacy groups have issued a joint statement:

We were saddened to hear news of the shooting this morning at the offices of the Family Research Council. Our hearts go out to the shooting victim, his family, and his co-workers.

The motivation and circumstances behind today’s tragedy are still unknown, but regardless of what emerges as the reason for this shooting, we utterly reject and condemn such violence. We wish for a swift and complete recovery for the victim of this terrible incident.

Of course, then there's Brian Brown of NOM:

"Today's attack is the clearest sign we've seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as 'hateful' must end," said Brown. "The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled the Family Research Council a 'hate group' for its pro-marriage views, and less than a day ago the Human Rights Campaign issued a statement calling FRC a 'hate group'—they even specified that FRC hosts events in Washington, DC, where today's attack took place."

Brown said that for "too long national gay rights groups have intentionally marginalized and ostracized pro-marriage groups and individuals by labeling them as 'hateful' and 'bigoted.'"

I must point out that the SPLC was quite clear that it did not label FRC a hate group for its "pro-marriage" views. It labeled FRC a hate group because of its consistent pattern of using lies, misrepresentations and distortions to demonize LGBT people.

And can you say "projection"?