Wingnuts - Fanning The Flames And Killing People

This today from a quite reserved and restrained Rude Pundit :

Richard Poplawski shot and killed three police officers before being arrested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He legally owned an assault weapon and two handguns, despite being booted from the Marines for being too violent. Poplawski was a young man convinced the nation was secretly controlled by a cabal that would eradicate freedom of speech, take away his guns and use the military to enslave the citizenry.

Conservatives are running scared because the left is seeing a connection, especially with Poplawski, between the violent, apocalyptic rhetoric of the right.

Jesus Christ, nut up, right wingers. You can't say that we're heading towards revolution and that gun laws are harming America, but, hey, we don't want violence. No, you can't walk around naked with a raging hard-on, but then say you don't wanna fuck something. There's times when you don't get to decide what your words actually mean; there's times when others take your words and actions to logical conclusions whether you meant it or not. Toss in a depr/recession and a touch of crazy and, well, boom. So at least admit that you squirted a little lighter fluid onto the fire.

and with another opinion on the same subject is David Neiwert at Crooks And Liars :

You have to wonder if right-wingers will ever get it: Difference isn't a threat. Because we believe in freedom of speech and freedom of thought, there will probably always be haters like Richard Poplawski among us. Inevitably they will be driven by fear: the fear of difference. Because to them, difference of any kind is a threat.

They were mewling like wounded hyenas this weekend after some of us pointed out that there was a direct connection between the irresponsible fearmongering in which they've been indulging since Barack Obama was elected and Saturday's tragedy in Pittsburgh.
We strongly believe that there's a clear, common-sense connection between the paranoiac fearmongering that has passed for right-wing rhetoric since well before Obama's election (and has become acute since) and violence like that in Pittsburgh, or in Knoxville: horrifying tragedies, in which the sources of the criminal's unambiguous motives are that very same hysterical fearmongering -- whether it's about the evil socialists, stinking immigrants, or conspiring gun-grabbers who've taken over the country since Election Day.

And yes, Glenn Beck deserves some mention here. His fearmongering on the gun issue is noteworthy in itself. I'm sure we all remember the time he speculated that these shooters were just ordinary citizens frustrated by "the system" and "political correctness."

At the same time, the unrelenting meme being pushed by the right that Obama will mount an assault on the Second Amendment has helped fuel the panic buying of firearms. According to the F.B.I., there have been 1.2 million more requests for background checks of potential gun buyers from November to February than there were in the same four months last year.

Needless to say, President Obama has repeatedly expressed his support for the Second Amendment and opposes a ban on firearms in the United States.

And from across the big water, read what The British Observer has to say :

The American right-wing machine has cranked up its engine of evil to prevent Obama from doing what needs to be done. I get Fox News on what you can refer to as cable, and it is clear that there is a systemic attempt to muster and organise against Obama’s agenda. Now, organising against the Democratic agenda is not in itself a bad thing. It is only right that in a healthy and functional democracy there exist a strong and viable opposition, laying their cards on the table. However, what we witness now is not the laying of cards, but rather: IRRATIONAL HATRED. The kind of hatred that Clinton faced and that Kennedy before him faced. The kind of right-wing hatred that propels individuals to shoot up schools and immigration centres under the demonstrably false contention that the election of Barack Obama, America’s first black President, would herald a drop in their standard of living, a standard that had already received permanent residency in the toilet after W.’s first term. The kind of hate that pushes duly elected member of America’s legislative arm to call for "revolutions" or to accuse the President of the United States of being a "socialist". The kind of hate that leaves the American secret service no choice but to put in place an unimaginable security regime around the American President just to ensure a Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity inspired lunatic does not turn everybody’s worst nightmare into reality.

A little more on the Pittsburgh shooter :
Accused cop-killer Richard Poplawski spent hours posting racist messages on an extremist right-wing Web site, decrying blacks and Latinos and warning of forthcoming economic collapse fueled by the "Zionist occupation" of America, an expert in political extremism has determined. Earlier, he had praised the "AK" rifle as his ideal weapon.

On March 13, according to the site, Mr. Poplawski wrote a lengthy post predicting economic collapse, engineered by a Jewish conspiracy:

"The federal government, mainstream media, and banking system in these United States are strongly under the influence of -- if not completely controlled by -- Zionist interest," the post declares. "An economic collapse of the financial system is inevitable, bringing with it some degree of civil unrest if not outright balkanization of the continental US, civil/revolutionary/racial war . . . This collapse is likely engineered by the elite Jewish powers that be in order to make for a power and asset grab."

So , not just another nutty crazed gunman, and not a guy who " flipped out when the dog pissed on the rug ". Let the blame fall where it should.