In the days after the Chattanooga, Tenn., killing of four U.S. marines by Muslim immigrant Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, the right is more frenzied, with calls for an end to not just immigration but to “Muslim immigration” to the U.S.
Like a mad dog chasing red meat, right-wingers have turned their anger from Mexican immigrant Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, who pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder of Kathryn Steinle, 31, to all Muslim immigrants.
Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul told Breitbart News he’s planning to investigate Muslim immigration problems, and he definitely wants to restrict immigration from predominantly Muslim countries.
Likewise, former Rep. Michele Bachmann insisted, “Across the world, wherever Muslim immigration has been allowed to flourish, a connection to terrorism has flourished also.”
Indian-American Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, another Republican hopeful, took it a step further, claiming Muslims want to come to America to “conquer us.”
“If someone wants to come here and change our fundamental culture and our values, if they want to come here and they want to set up their own culture and values, that’s not immigration, that’s really invasion, if you’re honest about it,” he said recently.
Meanwhile, the Rev. Franklin Graham called for banning all Muslims from entering the United States.
Ironically, none of these strong comments came from these individuals when Dylann Roof walked into a Black church in Charleston, S.C., and slaughtered nine Americans because of hate. No one dared to call it terrorism or label Roof a terrorist. There was no doubt that it was homegrown terror, but none on the right dared rile their base of crazies and call it that.
However, blogger James F. McGrath insists if we are to call what Abdulazeez did “terrorism” and quickly paint an entire group with the broad brush of terrorism and call for them to be banned from the U.S., then perhaps we need to ban European Christians from migrating to the U.S. as well, especially given the horrors of “James Holmes and Dylann Roof and the hundred more rampage killers of mass violence in American history.”
When will the right wake up and realize that it is the ease of purchasing guns within the borders of this country, which many on their side support, that is the biggest cause of terror of all times?
Examine all the cases and the facts will slam you in the face. Abdulazeez could not have carried out his killings if he could not have bought guns so easily. Roof would not have been able to buy a gun if it weren’t for a loophole in the law that allowed a sale if there was a delay in the background check and an error by the FBI.
It is guns and the loose gun laws in this country that are causing the terror on American soil, not Muslims, not immigrants and not white Christians. To claim otherwise is dishonest and smacks of complete hypocrisy. Even if a fence is built all around the U.S. and all foreigners are kept out, it will not stop the killings if the guns keep flowing freely within the country.
The writer is CMO of Hard Beat Communications, which owns the brands News Americas Now, CaribPR Wire and Invest Caribbean Now.