Trump, Once Again, Blames the Victims for Not Having More Guns in Synagogues and Churches

The Era of Trump continues to unfold with repeated incidents of violence and tragedy. And through it all, the President regards himself blameless for the horrors that take place on his watch. But what’s worse is that he has no plans to do anything about it except offer “thoughts and prayers” while denying any responsibility for his own hate-speech and the easy accessibility to deadly weapons.

Trump Charlotsville

On Saturday morning there was another mass shooting, this time in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Law enforcement officials are reporting multiple fatalities and wounded. The suspect is in custody and is reported to have yelled that “All Jews must die,” prior to murdering innocent worshipers in cold blood.

Donald Trump spoke to reporters briefly on the matter as he left the White House Saturday morning. He was expected to make remarks about the shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue. However, he opened with a promo for his speech later in the day at the Future Farmers of America conference. Naturally he had to put all of the attention on himself before addressing the tragic event.

When he got around to the shooting he said that “It’s a terrible, terrible thing that’s going on with hate in our country and all over the world.” It’s a surprisingly ironic comment coming from someone who is so personally responsible for that hate. But then he engaged in the following exchange with a reporter (video below):

Reporter: Mr. President, do you think you need to revisit gun laws?
Trump: Well, again, this has little to do with it. If you had protection inside, the results would have been far better. This is a dispute that will always exist, I suspect. But if they had some kind of protection inside the temple, maybe it could have been a very much different situation. They didn’t.

First of all, Trump is either lying or is woefully uninformed about the facts. There actually was an armed guard in the synagogue. And three trained security guards were wounded by the shooter. This has been the case in a many of the mass shootings that occur in the U.S., but they rarely prevent the sickening loss of life. Guards are to be commended for their courage and commitment, but a shooter who arrives a semiautomatic assault weapon, and without warning, can cause a lot of damage before a defender can even get to the scene. Stopping people from getting weapons like those used in most of these incidents is a far better solution that cuts the off the rampage at its source. But Trump, and his cohorts in the NRA-captive Republican Party, refuse to even consider that option, despite the endless bloodshed.

More troubling is Trump’s routine assertion that the victims are to blame for their own murders because they weren’t armed to the teeth in their temple. And by being peaceful worshipers, Trump believes that they, not the murderer, bear responsibility for their deaths. Trump and his ilk believe that America needs to become an armed fortress where everyone is packing heat in the event they encounter a wrongdoer. That’s a nauseating vision of a violent, dystopian society that would only pile up more innocent bodies in our streets.

This is just another tragic event wherein a shooter with obvious ties to right-wing doctrine and bigotry has brought sorrow to innocent families. And our nation is burdened with a heartless president, who previously found common ground with similarly bigoted crackpots who chanted “Jews will not replace us,” as they marched through the streets of Charlottesville, North Carolina. That ended in tragedy as well, and Trump’s response was that “there are very fine people on both sides.” And that sort of dismissal of overt prejudice is what emboldens more murderous cretins like the one that just shot up this synagogue.

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6 thoughts on “Trump, Once Again, Blames the Victims for Not Having More Guns in Synagogues and Churches

  1. I hate to be pedantic, but the Second Amendment was written to provide a way for arming state militias. In spite of Scalia’s random, incoherent arguments in Heller, the Second Amendment was not meant to “guarantee the right for all individuals to bear arms”.

    I know i shouldn’t state the obvious, but if firearms were outlawed except for special situations, killers wold have to use knives or swords.

    My solution is simple: if a person wants to own a firearm, they must first join an organization approved by the Department of Justice, such a s a local gun club. They would have to be vetted in order to get in. Once in, they would have to receive forearms training by a recognized organization, like, maybe the National Rifle Association. Finally, any arms acquired would have to be kept under a lock and key, with electronic notice to the local law enforcement authorities whenever the firearm was taken form lock and key.

    I don’t think my suggestion is unreasonable…

    Any comments?

    • I make this argument a lot. The Trump worshiping NRA (Numbskulled Ret@rded A$$holes) have no understanding what the Second Amendment says, and they treat it as the only part of the Constitution that means anything.

      I agree with you 100%. We DON’T want to get rid of all guns, and no President — Democratic OR Trump Worshiper* — will ever push for such a ban.

      * I no longer use the term “Republican” — there is NOTHING republican in the Trump Worshiper Party. Not any more.

  2. I share the frustrations…… The NRA conveniently has left the militia portion of the amendment off their tee shirts and billboards–and in the minds of its adherent warriors, who oppose any controls on themselves. This chopping off of a par of the Constitution t they don’t like is a Typical Rethuglican Trick.

    When all hell breaks loose after a name brand non-jewish, all white congregation in a major population center is shot up, maybe Scalia’s POV will be re-visited with a new ruling–if we are still one country by then. But maybe not in my lifetime. I’m near the end and really don’t want to live to see this country in a shooting war with itself, or broken up into smaller countries with armed borders to keep out the neighbors.

  3. Mark, I concur with your article overall, but I do indeed feel ya might need to check and triple check your sources concerning the presence of an ‘armed guard’ and ‘three trained security guards that were wounded’. In fact reports have confirmed there were no security guards, such as in the Washington Post reporting. At present there is no reporting of an armed guard and the only officers reported wounded were policemen.

    I certainly wouldn’t want progressive articles to mislead as that it is a right-wing trait.

    However, in Trump barfing up the old Republican vomit that if there were weapons on site then the situation could have been a lot less lethal or even avoided is ludicrous. This only skates around the gun issue instead of addressing it and who truly wants this nation to be armed to the teeth everywhere one goes that maybe even a semi-automatic toting once dear ol’ grandma might get just mad enough to begin shooting up folks over a grocery bill…

  4. I’m coming around to the point of view that the federal government should require every citizen to carry a firearm, that the Federal government should pass two laws: one, a stand your ground law, which would enable anyone who feels they are being pushed around t oblow away assailants, and a second law, an advance your cause law, which would allow anyone who feels they are being inhibited to blow away whomever is inhibiting them. Between the two laws, the country should quickly get rid of all the hot heads, bigots and racists…

    • It would also quickly devolve into a maelstrom of violence that way. After all, “anyone who feels they are being pushed around to blow away assailants” and “anyone who feels they are being inhibited to blow away whomever is inhibiting them” are pretty wide non-definitions.

      In fact, it can be argued that the synagogue shooting would be valid under the second “law” you proposed. These anti-Semites always give the reason that the Jews are the enemy because they are trying to “take over”, which can be considered as “inhibiting them”.

      So no I don’t agree with this at all.

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