WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015

Exploiting Mass Shootings One More Time

Obama will be headed to the West Coast on Friday for another one of his over-taxed payer funded fundraising junkets, stopping off on the way in Oregon for some more phony-baloney photo ops and “private visits” with families of mass shooting victims that have become another symbol of his failed presidency.

Although Obama immediately promised to “politicize the shootings,” Obama’s White House Propaganda Minister Josh Earnest claimed, “That’s not what he’ll be doing as he visits the victims of the college shooting in Oregon on Friday.” Wink, wink, Nod, nod, say no more.

According to the White House, Obama will be traveling to meet and console the victims and no public remarks are expected. Wanna bet?

Obama’s remarks in favor of gun control a few hours after the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College is sparking anger in Roseburg about his upcoming visit to the city. David Jacques, a Republican activist who publishes a weekly newspaper in Roseburg, warned on national TV on Monday night that the president “is not welcome in the community.” Local social media sites in the conservative community are replete with criticism of the president, and several local officials said Obama should stay away from the subject of gun laws during his Friday visit. Jacques also said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive that Obama showed “blatant disregard for the mourning process,” and he charged that the president is coming to Roseburg to recruit family members to speak out in favor of tougher gun laws.

“I was not pleased with the direction the commander-in-chief took” after the shootings, Republican Oregon State Representative Dallas Heard, said Tuesday. “Let’s hope he can think to do better when he comes here. We can only hope.”

Jacques said two Douglas County commissioners – Tim Freeman and Chris Boice – as well as Sheriff John Hanlin on Saturday expressed support for a statement saying they were not interested in having the president visit if he is “coming here to take advantage of our crisis to promote his political agenda.” What was their first clue?

Jeff Ackerman, editor and publisher of the Roseburg News-Review, the local daily newspaper, said it is one thing for the president to meet privately with the families of the victims. “If he’s going to stand on Main Street and talk about gun control,” Ackerman said, “that’s not going to go too well in Roseburg or Douglas County.”

Dr. Ben Carson slammed Obama for Oregon his visit with shooting victims’ families. Carson said if he were president, he wouldn’t visit Roseburg. The Republican presidential candidate also slammed Obama for his call on the same day of the shooting to politicize the event that killed nine people at Umpqua Community College, in hopes of finally getting momentum for gun control legislation. “Imagine a politician politicizing something,” Carson remarked during an interview with “Fox and Friends.” When do we get to the point where we have people who actually want to solve our problems rather than just politicize everything? I think that’s what the American people are so sick and tired of.” Obama made similar political campaign trips in the past, including in Charleston, South Carolina this year; in Aurora, Colorado in 2012; and in Newtown, Connecticut, also in 2012. Asked what he would have done had a gunman walked up to him and asked him to state his religion, Carson said he would have been more aggressive. “Not only would I probably not cooperate with him, I would not just stand there and let him shoot me, I would say, ‘Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all,'” he told the hosts.

Fellow Republican Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee said, “Obama was quick to admittedly politicize this tragedy to advance his liberal, anti-gun agenda. For this president to make a political pronouncement is at best premature and at worst ignorantly inflammatory.” Huckabee maintained that “gun free zones,” like the community college targeted in Thursday’s shooting, “are sitting duck zones. In conclusion, he lambasted Obama’s bias in determining which gun-related crimes warrant national action. “There were 50 shootings in Chicago the past two weekends,” Huckabee explained, “and this administration failed to utter a word. Gun violence is a problem in this country, but it’s not the fault of the Second Amendment it’s the fault of evil people doing evil things.”

Speaking to The Washington Post, Donald Trump declared, “It sounds like another mental health problem. So many of these people, they’re coming out of the woodwork. We have to really get to the bottom of it.” “It’s happening more and more,” he added. “I just don’t remember — years back, I just don’t remember these things happening. Certainly not with this kind of frequency.”

Ohio Governor John Kasich became the latest Republican presidential candidate to offer controversial comments on the recent spate of mass gun violence. Asked what role, if any, government should have in preventing such mass shootings, Kasich responded that the only government responses should be improved mental health care.

But in Roseburg, Oregon, 86-year-old Carolyn Kellim owns a gun store and says she is sick of “executive anus” Obama’s “strange ideas” on gun control. Kellim donates all her profits from gun sales to a homeless charity “that works with kids and families.” According to KGW.com, Kellim’s gun store–KC’s Exchange–is in her home, where it is contained in one room. She keeps her gun of choice–a Ruger LCR .22 Magnum revolver–close at hand as she operates the shop and says the world would be a better place with more love and less hate. However, one thing she is sure the world doesn’t need is more gun control: “I think that’s the worst thing in the world they could do. They’ve got so many laws now that they are not even looking at, and more constraints on guns is not the answer.”