In the span of one week, there have been two high-profile mass shootings coming on the heels of the President’s renewed push for gun control.
One, it would seem, was committed by a white male who looks about as crazy as the Unabomber and Charles Manson’s love child.
The most recent was committed by a young married Muslim couple.
The man was a U.S.-born citizen of Pakistani descent, and his wife and partner in crime was a foreign national.
And just like that, the battle for the terrorism narrative took one step forward and two steps back.
How to Define Terrorism?
This has really become the question of the day.
It is not even that America is attempting to scholastically define terrorism as much as they are trying to grapple with it in their heads and hearts.
There is a prevailing sentiment in America that terrorism is born in the Middle East and has wrapped itself in the flag of Islam.
And whereas most Americans wouldn’t make the assertion that every Muslim is a terrorist, they can’t separate the two in their heads as much as the politically correct culture of the day would want them to.
But there is a good percentage of Americans who would assert that white males conduct terrorist attacks more often in America than Muslims.
This was the narrative quickly pushed in the aftermath of the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting.
And just as America was beginning to wrestle with that question, the jihadi Bonnie and Clyde showed up yesterday to take back the narrative.
But why bother to try and understand this dichotomy when you can just let a politician tell you what this means?
Because according to their mantra, they never let a good tragedy go to waste.
It’s Not Terrorism; It’s the NRA’s Fault.
That is the straw-man argument that has become the popular phrase of the day.
For many, the problem is not the people or the ideology; it is the guns.
They don’t like to call it the Second Amendment because that sounds too constitutional and therefore too legitimized.
Since over a one-third of American households are gun-owning normal people like you and me, they can’t even attack gun owners.
But a three-letter organization seems like fair game.
So you will hear this pushed over and over for the next month: that it is time to stand up to the NRA.
Personally, I don’t think people support the Second Amendment because the NRA is powerful.
Rather, I think the NRA is powerful because people support the Second Amendment.
It is the political arm of a deeply held American tradition and constitutional right.
As a result of these tragedies, two completely separate shootings that couldn’t be more different are being lumped together into one political attack.
How can America have the conversation it needs to have when politicians are hijacking the narrative for their own gain?
Because we know that an excessive amount of bacon or cigarettes might kill us, but let’s talk about ice cream instead.
Terrorism has the potential, as we all saw on 9/11, to shut down the markets, change the course of industries, and alter the future of America.
This is the conversation that needs to be had today.
We can debate the Second Amendment all day long, but I preference we deal with the threat sitting right in our laps first.
Because like it or not, America is at war with terrorism, and that will not change for the foreseeable future.
