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Whoopi Claims Nashville Shooting Wasn't Anti-Christian Violence During Unhinged Rant on 'The View'

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Remember: When there’s a mass shooting and the motive doesn’t feed the narrative, the gun did it.

There was no one behind the gun. Don’t even talk about the shooter. It was always the gun, especially the AR-15. That thing, it’s even more powerful than the One Ring: Touch it once and the malevolent power it takes over you is so great that you just want to go out and shoot somebody — anybody.

This is especially true in the Nashville, Tennessee, mass shooting on Monday, where a woman who identified as transgender killed six people at a Christian school, including three children. That’s unusually inconvenient, particularly given that it happened just before a so-called “Trans Day of Vengeance” called for by some activist groups. So it’s the gun. Gun, gun, gun, gun, gun. Do not talk about anything else.

If you want a hyper-distilled, 180-proof version of this coverage from a single media source and clip, look no further than Wednesday’s edition of “The View,” in which panel moderator Whoopi Goldberg said the problem had everything to do with so-called “assault weapons” and nothing to do with anti-Christian sentiment.

The reason? Well, it’s not like they talk about anti-Christian violence when black churches are targeted. I mean, except when they do, but we’ll get to that later.

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Goldberg and the other panel members were responding to statements like that of Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, who called it “a hate crime” against Christians.

“We must also tell the truth about what happened [Monday] in Nashville. This murderous rampage, this taking of innocent life, was a horrific crime, but more specifically it was a hate crime,” Hawley said.

Should Whoopi apologize for her obscene comments?

“A crime that, according to Nashville police, specifically targeted … the members of this Christian community, the members of this religious institution, its students, its educators, its employees.”

Goldberg said during Monday’s show that “some people [are] using this as an excuse to demonize the transgender community, I mean, crazy stuff. Is this once again — are we just ‘wee-ing’ in the wind?”

Instead, she said, the lesson from Monday’s shooting was clear: “Let’s start with this, the AR-15-style rifle nets to go, period. Period.”

“You cannot hunt with it,” Whoopi said, which will come as a surprise to the untold numbers of hunters and ranchers who use it. “There’s nothing left after you shot it.

“And we all know what it does. Until that conversation can be had, nothing is going to happen … that’s the issue. The issue is that damned rifle. Get rid of that, and you know, people will go, “OK, let’s talk about, you know, real issues.’ But as I said, I cannot go get a Howitzer, there’s stuff I can’t buy.”

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She went on to criticize what appeared to be Hawley, saying she “heard one guy say ‘this is against the Christians.’

“No, it’s not against the Christians. You would have mentioned it when they went into the black church, you would have mentioned it,” Goldberg said.



Goldberg appears to be referring to the 2015 mass shooting at a predominately black church in Charleston, South Carolina by a white supremacist.

This argument is self-defeating because 1) if the media didn’t cover it as a hate crime not only against blacks but against black Christians, they ought to have, and 2) the same legacy sources that are steering clear of any religious motive to appease the narrative deities here tied religion in to the motive of the shooter in that case.

CBS News: “Dylann Roof had list of other black churches in his car.”

Slate: “Why White Terrorists Attack Black Churches: Sanctuaries like Charleston’s AME Church aren’t just places of worship—they’re political institutions that threaten white power.”

NPR: “It’s been five years since one of the most heinous racial killings in U.S. history when a white supremacist murdered nine worshippers at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.” [Emphasis ours.]

The media, in its reporting, its angling and its language, openly suggested that Roof targeted the church because he saw the spirituality of its parishioners as a threat to his warped, twisted worldview.

Mind you, there was plenty of talk about the AR-15 and its role in the attack. But not that Roof used one — he didn’t. Rather, here’s CNN: “Charleston racist shooter Roof wanted an AR-15; had magazines, accessory.”

He used a .45 caliber handgun instead. In a situation where an armed individual is attacking unsuspecting, unarmed individuals, the gun can be almost anything the shooter wants to use.

And even though the shooter in this case had an AR-15 with them, it’s not clear she used it. Security footage shows her with three weapons: the AR-15-style gun, a carbine — or long gun which shoots pistol ammunition — and a 9mm pistol.

Footage of Hale in the halls of the Covenant School show Hale carrying the carbine, not the AR-style rifle.

So why use the AR-15 at all, then? Simple: You get talked about more. It has a mythic quality to it.

CNN devoted coverage to the fact Roof wanted a gun he didn’t carry out the massacre with. Mass shooters are twisted individuals who want to become talking points; an AR-15-style rifle may confer no advantages in mass murder, but it certainly prolong’s one’s infamy.

And if it gets Whoopi Goldberg to rant about how “the issue is that damned rifle,” even if “that damned rifle” may not have killed three young children and three adults, all the better for psychopaths — and the media complex that enables them.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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