Obama: Never Letting A Good Mass Shooting Go To Waste

My article from the Oct. 2, 2015 issue of FrontPageMag:

Obama: Never Letting A Good Mass Shooting Go To Waste

By Matthew Vadum

Mere hours after a young, mixed-race religion-hater fatally shot at least nine apparently Christian victims at an Oregon college, President Obama tried to harangue Americans into supporting fresh restrictions on guns, the most severely regulated consumer goods in America.

The shooter has been identified as 20-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer. Police say in mid-morning they received reports of a gunman walking around Umpqua Community College (UCC) near Roseburg, Ore. As is the case in all or perhaps nearly all mass shootings at schools, UCC was a gun-free zone.

Wearing body armor, the man reportedly entered a classroom where an English and writing class was being conducted and demanded that those present state their religion.

Those who indicated they were Christian were fatally shot. Those who refused to answer were reportedly shot in the legs. Harper-Mercer apparently died during a shootout with responding police but at time of writing it was unclear if he killed himself or was shot by the officers.

Viewing every crisis as an opportunity to advance his legislative agenda, Obama placed his crosshairs squarely on the Bill of Rights. Our media-savvy, Saul Alinsky-worshipping president took to the bully pulpit to petulantly insist -- even before many facts about the massacre were known -- that last night was exactly the right time to "politicize" gun ownership rights.

“This is a political choice that we make, to allow this to happen every few months in America,” Obama said. “We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.”

In his televised temper tantrum, Obama scolded those opposed to a crackdown on firearms ownership, including people who say the nation needs "more guns" to prevent such mass shootings. He implored those who would gut Second Amendment protections to vote for political candidates who share their visceral contempt for a constitutionally-guaranteed right.

“Each time this happens I’m going to bring this up,” Obama said. “Each time this happens I am going to say we can actually do something about it.”

Obama's twelve-and-a-half minute oration was the fifteenth time the president has issued a statement on a mass shooting, CBS Radio reporter Mark Knoller wrote on Twitter.

“Somehow this has become routine,” Obama said. “The reporting is routine, my response here at this podium ends up being routine. And what becomes routine is the response from those who oppose any sort of gun control legislation."

Indeed Obama's shopworn routine has become all too familiar to Americans. Whenever there is a mass shooting Obama predictably uses it to try to disarm law-abiding gun owners.

Ferguson Bombers Sentenced

My article in today's FrontPageMag:

Ferguson Bombers Sentenced

By Matthew Vadum

A foiled plot to use bombs to assassinate the police chief, county prosecutor, and other officials in troubled Ferguson, Mo., and also blow up the iconic Gateway Arch in nearby St. Louis, has ended in federal prison terms for two New Black Panther Party members.

In a sweetheart plea bargain deal, Olajuwon Davis and Brandon Orlando Baldwin, both radical black Muslim men in their twenties, received mere seven-year custodial sentences last week from U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey when they could have been sent to prison for decades. The men were sentenced "on charges of planning and conspiring to ignite explosive devices during the Ferguson protests and procuring firearms for convicted felons," according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.

U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan congratulated law enforcement for preventing what might have been a major disaster. "The disruption of this plot ... undoubtedly saved lives. Luckily for all of us, we’ll never know just how many," he said.

Davis and Baldwin met when they participated in the protests in Ferguson that followed the Aug. 9, 2014 death of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man. Brown was killed by white then-police officer Darren Wilson when he charged Wilson after trying to wrest his service weapon from him. Brown's death sparked riots in Ferguson and across America. Soon after meeting, Davis and Baldwin began plotting to arm fellow demonstrators and destroy the Gateway Arch.

The sentencing comes as black nationalists and members of the Black Lives Matter movement escalate calls for violent attacks on police, while the Obama administration responds by sitting on its hands. Last month Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan called for "10,000 fearless men" to come forward and slaughter white Americans. Black-supremacist King Noble is calling on blacks to murder whites and police. "It's not safe no more to be white in America," Noble announced in a viral YouTube video. "Lurking behind any corner could be an angry black man ready to take yo ass out."

It also comes as the terrorist-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) throws its lot in with the increasingly violent Black Lives Matter movement. Breitbart News reports that "CAIR leaders and members joined Black Lives Matter in a march on the California State Capitol on [Sept. 2], targeting Gov. Jerry Brown’s office over a new bill that, in part, would expand bans on racial profiling to include perceived ethnicity." The fact that CAIR is siding with violent activists against police "creates a serious problem for CAIR’s defenders, which argue that its associations with Islamic extremism can be overlooked because it helps law enforcement work with, and within, the Muslim community."