Bill O’Reilly Must Be Terribly Disappointed The Lafayette Theater Shooter Isn’t Mexican

It is getting more difficult every day to dismiss the epidemic of gun violence that has gripped our nation. The past few weeks has seen a racist in South Carolina massacre nine churchgoers, a young Muslim in Chattanooga mow down five American soldiers, an undocumented immigrant shoot a woman strolling on a pier, and a crazed “drifter” go on a rampage in a Louisiana movie theater.

While each of these incidents were unarguably tragic, only one of them produced a fervent call to action by knee-jerk conservatives. After Kate Steinle was killed in San Francisco, the right-wing outrage machine cranked up to eleven. There were immediate allegations that the crime was wholly attributable to the city’s so-called “sanctuary city” laws and the fact that the perpetrator was an undocumented immigrant.

Pundits primed with prejudice whipped up xenophobic fury despite the fact that the crime could just as well have been committed by a native-born citizen without changing a single one of the circumstances. Politicians wasted no time in drafting bills to punish cities with progressive laws (that are favored by law enforcement), and mandating harsh sentences for repeat immigration violations.

For some reason, none of the panic stricken conservatives bellowing about the awful fate of Ms. Steinle were able to recognize the one thing that all of these incidents had in common: Someone who ought not to have had access to a gun was able to acquire one of more of them and forever destroy the lives of some innocent people.

Fox News Bill O'Reilly

Chief among these carping cretins was, as usual, Bill O’Reilly. In a matter of hours he was pontificating on the horrors of alien invaders pillaging our defenseless womenfolk. He started an online petition to gather support for something he called “Kate’s Law” to increase the penalties for immigration violations. His entire spiel was based on the assertion that the only reason Steinle was killed was because of lax border security.

The sad truth is that people like Steinle are killed every day under similar circumstances by American citizens. But this fact is an inconvenient distraction for O’Reilly who is intent on blaming a population of immigrants, most of whom are peaceful people who are merely trying to find ways to care for their families.

However, when the perpetrator turns out to be a white, Tea Party wingnut, O’Reilly can’t seem to muster up a public response to address the situation. There are no petitions or hastily drawn up bills, or wild accusations or vein-bursting rants. In fact, Reilly doesn’t even bother to acknowledge that the Lafayette suspect, John Russel Houser, is an Obama-hating supporter of the Westboro Baptist nut cases and a card-carrying member of the Tea Party Nation. And despite his long history of offensive postings on Internet discussion sites, O’Reilly never connects the dots to associate him with the network of violent domestic terrorists.

Houser was previously denied a permit to purchase a gun and he has a history of mental illness. His ex-wife had secured a restraining order to protect her from his “extreme erratic behavior.” Nevertheless, he managed to acquire an arsenal and shoot up a theater, killing two innocent women and injuring several others. But as far as O’Reilly is concerned, it’s just too bad that he wasn’t an illegal alien from Mexico so there could be a lynching party formed to march up to the castle with torches and pitchforks.

All of the evidence shows that right-wing domestic terrorists pose a far greater threat to Americans than the much-hyped ISIS brand. Sovereign citizens, Klan groups, militias, and extremist Christianists have been responsible for many more deaths and injuries than the fabled Islamic sleeper cells. But even after Tea Party disciples of Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch gang murdered two Las Vegas police officers, there was no call to action by O’Reilly or his conservative colleagues.

President Obama lamented today that he was “distressed” about not having been able to do something about gun safety during his term in office. He told the BBC that…

“If you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it’s less than 100. If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it’s in the tens of thousands,”

And throughout the last seven years, as throughout the last seventy, it is the right-wing, NRA fearing, Republican Party that has stood in the way common sense solutions. As noted above, the one thing that all of the tragedies that are occurring in ever more rapid succession have in common is the use of deadly weapons that have no practical purpose other than killing human beings.

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Until we solve the problem of these weapons being so easily accessible to people with hostile intentions, there will be more tragedies and more grieving survivors. And, no doubt, more pathetic excuses from grand-standers like O’Reilly who search desperately for vulnerable victims unto whom he can shift the blame.

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13 thoughts on “Bill O’Reilly Must Be Terribly Disappointed The Lafayette Theater Shooter Isn’t Mexican

  1. Listen Mark these Conservative Domestic Terror attacks pose zero problems for Right-Wing Hate Machine, Jim Hoft or some other right-wing bullshit blogger simply declares the shooter to be a Liberal and Gun Humping Lunatics proclaim there’s nothing we can do about gun violence and the situation returns to normal until some other right-wing domestic terrorist believes the lies of Hannity, Limbaugh, Levin, Ingraham, Ben Shapiro, or whomever and goes on a spree.

  2. Your ability to morph an article from one subject – Bill O Reilly – into a hit piece about one of your dreaded right wing groups never ceases to amaze me. In your analysis of groups that pose great risk to the people of this country, do you ever even try to think about why these groups exist? No? I understand that may lead you to conclusions you don’t want to address. A solution that is easily derived from your indictment of “Sovereign citizens, Klan groups, militias, and extremist Christianists” is to round them up or have your precious government control them better. I’m never sure whose side you’re on – did you ever even try to determine why these groups exist? Why do people feel the way they do? Maybe an analysis of root causes is warranted here – then one can possibly solve the problems of society. I certainly don’t have the answers, but ignoring why people in this country feel as they do isn’t going to make anything better is it? The last time I checked – it’s not legal to kill other people, so laws don’t appear to be the answer as they are easily ignored by those who are no longer interested in following rules or good judgement.

    And giving a pass to radical islamists while specifically citing “extremist Christianists” as you did gives a bit of insight into whose side you’re on. NEITHER should be ignored, but you still give a pass to the islamic state – you’re quite an American.

    • These groups exist because there are so many paranoid, simple minded and violent personalities in this country whipped into a frenzy 24/7 by right wing propaganda and lies. This has been the game plan from the repubs since before Nixon, divide and conquer and throw in as much race baiting, religious zealotry and fear mongering as possible. With tools like Limbaugh, Hannity and Colter, the NRA and of course, the Fox machine,it has been very successful, hence, the murder of innocent people almost daily by crazed lunatics.

      • Well said, but way above Steve’s head.

    • You really work hard at being painfully obtuse, don’t you? I know it’s a waste of time to respond to your trolling, but I have some free time this morning.

      First of all, I didn’t morph O’Reilly into a hit piece, I used him as representative of something that is happening across the spectrum of conservative press and politics. If you don’t see it that’s your problem.

      Secondly, I, and many others, have given a great deal of thought about why hate groups exist, and the reasons fill many books. But this is just an article about a specific example of media bias, not a treatise on the history hate groups. And the suggestion that I’m advocating “rounding them up” is just plain stupid and without basis from anything I wrote.

      Thirdly, your opinion that laws are unnecessary because people break them shows how shallow your thinking is. From that perspective there should be no laws at all. Of course there are those who will ignore laws, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have any or that new ones won’t be effective in deterring crime and punishing criminals.

      Finally, you pull an accusation that I’m “giving a pass to radical Islamists” straight out of your ass. I did include the Muslim murderer in Chattanooga in my first paragraph. But more to the point, I’m stressing that there bigger threats to society than that one, which is leaped on by the same xenophobes and bigots who blame immigrants for everything. And for that you mock my patriotism?

      Are you genetically incapable of making a coherent argument, or do you just enjoying making an idiot of yourself with off-topic, intellectually vacant bullshit?

      • Just wondering what “deaths and injuries” have been committed in the name of Christian extremism?

      • Steve never makes an idiot of himself. He destroys your arguments better than anyone else commenting.

        • By the way, the reason that there has been no comment from Bill O’Reilly on this shooting yet is because the shooting took place late Thursday. “The O’Reilly Factor” is usually just a rerun on Friday.

        • Oh how insightful this is coming from Scott, the guy who never misses a chance to talk bad here….but never really backs up his posts at all.

          Mark already disposed of steve’s post above contrary to your claim, but let’s take a look a that again shall we?

          In your analysis of groups that pose great risk to the people of this country, do you ever even try to think about why these groups exist? No? I understand that may lead you to conclusions you don’t want to address. A solution that is easily derived from your indictment of “Sovereign citizens, Klan groups, militias, and extremist Christianists” is to round them up or have your precious government control them better.

          Here we have steve lamenting about how Mark didn’t do something he wanted him to do rather than what he actually wrote about. Mark already pointed out this little red herring, he doesn’t need to “analyse why hate groups exist” since that wasn’t the point of his article (which was highlighting how such groups DO exist and that they are trouble but Fox is playing favourites with how they cover such things), and steve didn’t really say why the fuck this should be addressed in this article (as Mark pointed out above, others have already addressed this elsewhere over and over).

          Steve also makes a false assertion about Mark with regards to how he thinks such “groups” should be dealt with. Mark didn’t actually write about how they should be dealt with, again that wasn’t what his article was about, but I got to say, it does seem like steve does NOT think such groups are a problem and he doesn’t seem to think that they should “be rounded up by the government” or things to that effect given how he states this as an opposition point.

          What do you think? Is steve somehow sympathetic to such groups?

          I certainly don’t have the answers, but ignoring why people in this country feel as they do isn’t going to make anything better is it?

          Now this is actually very interesting, steve is actually correct in stating that analyzing stuff can lead to a better understanding of the,. The weird part is how he can direct this comment at Mark when there are others who deserve it far moew…like Fox or Bill O’ Rielly or the right.

          What sort of analysis or understanding was shown in Bill’s coverage in the Steinle murder? Absolutely none since it didn’t focus on WHY the guy did it, they focused instead on his status as an illegal immigrant rather than his motives for shooting (and being an illegal immigrant didn’t contribute to the murder in terms of motive, but actually stating that would have ruined their attempt at politicizing and hyping the murder for their own ends). That’s not all. Fox never “analysed” the WaCo shootings, they never “analysed” police brutality or the events leading to the Ferguson and Baltimore riots, choosing instead to blame “black culture and missing black fathers”. The NRA too never tried to analyse the effect that the abundance of guns have on the perpetration of such shooting cases, heck they try to BLOCK discussions of such!

          Steve’s remark was wasted on Mark, he really should be throwing it at all those others I listed.

          The last time I checked – it’s not legal to kill other people, so laws don’t appear to be the answer as they are easily ignored by those who are no longer interested in following rules or good judgement.

          A very libertarian stance, but as Mark has already pointed out, it’s based on a flawed premise, that laws are meant to completely and utterly block all crimes from happening ever. That’s a completely impossible task since no system or rule can be so ironclad as to be unbreakable or circumnavigated. As mentioned already, accepting such a premise would mean that we should do away with all laws, since NONE of them work by this definition of their purpose. Laws actually serve to MITIGATE rather than prevent completely, and if we look at them from THIS, their actual purpose, more laws to such situations MAY be the answer.

          As long as we “analyse” them of course, like steve already said, but didn’t bother to consider here due to his false premise.

          And giving a pass to radical islamists while specifically citing “extremist Christianists” as you did gives a bit of insight into whose side you’re on. NEITHER should be ignored, but you still give a pass to the islamic state – you’re quite an American.

          Which Mark didn’t do, but you got to wonder, did he ever notice how Fox is more than willing to “give a pass” to white or Christian extremists? That was actually a point in Marks post, which he tried to turn back on him by stating a false assumption that he was actually giving “muslim extremists” a pass for doing so.

          Sorry, but calling out people for giving a pass on one set of extremists doesn’t mean that you’re giving the other set(s) a “pass” by doing so. Otherwise you’ll have to ask why both Mark and O’ Rielly “gave a pass” to Hindu extremists groups in India (and yes they exist) by not mentioning them at all ( or any other type of extremist groups not mentioned, and there are plenty of them).

          So yeah, pretty shallow piece that attempts to smear while trying to make excuses (that analysis thing was a good idea, but nothing more than a diversion if no actual analysis is cited, and led up to the point being made).

          But well substance was never really the forte of guys like you. It’s one of the reasons why a guy like Trump who is all talk but no walk is now at the top of your election charts.

  3. This is the same Bill O’Reilly that didn’t cover James Boulware shooting a Dallas police station,simply because Boulware was white.

  4. A pompous old blowhard named Bill
    Loved to boast of his ace combat skill
    Vietnam? Didn’t go.
    Falkland War? Sadly, no!
    But he kicked ass on Wife Assault Hill.

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