Our First Reaction to Orlando Should Not Be Partisan

By Michael D. Tanner Michael D. Tanner

Last weekend’s heinous terrorist attack on a gay nightclub in Florida was a tragedy, first and foremost for the victims and their families — whose pain and grief we can only imagine — for the city of Orlando, and for the LGBT community. But there was also something profoundly sad and disturbing about our reaction to it.

Before the dead and wounded had even been identified, Americans were already dividing into Team Red and Team Blue, busy assigning blame and pushing partisan political narratives. The fissures in this country now run so deep that we couldn’t even take a moment to grieve as a united people.

So quick were we to try to score political points that we ignored whether they were even applicable to the tragedy at hand. The 49 murdered men and women were reduced to little more than props.

Demonizing Muslim Americans compounds the evil of the Orlando massacre.

President Obama twisted himself into the usual verbal knots to avoid attaching the word “Islamic” to “terrorism” or “extremism,” but he did manage to put in his standard plug for gun control. His call for gun control was echoed by Democratic politicians from the presumptive presidential nominee to the local …Read the Rest

Source:: Cato Institute