Inconsistent Patrick, Oct 12^th

Patrick Buchanan’s column today reports that the mass murderer at the Umpqua community college was motivated by the lure of publicity. He cites ample evidence that this was, in fact, the killer’s motivation. This is hardly news. Some commentators when describing the event refused to use the killer’s name. They talked about his background and his obvious craving for notoriety but never mentioned his name. Buchanan has no such qualms; he gives us this man’s name about a dozen times in his column. That comes to a mention in a nationally syndicated column about every 65 words. Well, thanks to Buchanan everybody now knows who he was even if they didn’t know, or care, before today.

The Umpqua college shooting was eleven days ago on Oct 1. If some other deranged gun hugger had been following this event looking for publicity he (or she) might well have decided that while the shootings were horrific and got lots of publicity most of the public couldn’t name the shooter himself so why bother. In fact the names of these killers rarely survive for very long after the event. The worst massacre of this sort was at Virginia Tech University where 32 people were killed in 2007. We are eight years past that event but can anyone name who did it? The towns where these killings occur get the publicity, the Boston Bomber, the Virginia Tech massacre, the Sandy Hook shooting and others. We remember the events and identify them by their locations but not by the names of the killers.

Buchanan complains about the killer’s desperation for publicity and then, eleven days after the event, he proceeds to revive the incident, keeping it before the public and giving lots of publicity to the shooter. Didn’t he claim in his column that this same publicity was a driving force in these killings?

He tells us that none of “the innocent dead were carrying a concealed weapon.” He doesn’t tell us that other students nearby were carrying concealed weapons and were told to stay where they were because a SWAT team  was on the way and if they were seen with weapons they would be shot immediately. They listened to that advice. Buchanan never mentions that,  possibly because it doesn’t fit well with his agenda.

The killer grew up in a “…broken family, he was taught in schools from which the Ten Commandments had been ruthlessly expunged.” He also had a gun hugger for a mother. She claimed that she wanted to buy all the guns she could before the government confiscated them. She and her son would go shooting together. My guess is that her influence was a lot more important that the absence of the Ten Commandments from the school system Again, no mention of this curious mother by Buchanan; he’d much rather blame it all on the absence of religious instruction in the public schools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He has to take a swipe at the gun laws too. He points out that no gun law now in effect could have prevented this killing and he’s right about that.