The blood hadn't dried from the homophobic terrorists shooting rampage when leading politicians began blaming the gun and calling for a ban on sales of the AR-15.
The central issue is never the gun (per se) but rather, in whose hands are the guns? The politicians were wrong in their finger pointing. Turns out the Orlando jihadist used a Sig Sauer MCX, not an AR clone.
It all sounds so disgustingly familiar - the rush to judgment, the emailed action alerts, pleading for contributions to fight the devil de jure.
Have we learned nothing from our impatience to "do something" after 9/11 resulting in our sorrowful passage of the freedom-constricting Patriot Act?
Trump supporters and Bernie supporters all agree - "what we've been doing isn't working, let's try something else." Americans have real problems and we no longer retain the luxury to play "identity politics" and blame citizens who own guns - because they (we) didn't do it!
Was the carnage the fault of the gun?
Did it stem from the radical Islamic commandment that demands the killing of LBGT people as former Congressman Barney Frank suggested?
Was it the self-loathing homophobia of an ideology determined to end our Western way of life as well as the civility and acceptance of differences considered the basis of historic "liberalism"?
It's still too early to know and the facts still change almost hourly, but what is all too predictable and a revoltingly insulting to those we lost in Orlando is the circling array of politicians sniffing the carnage like buzzards preparing for a feeding frenzy. No matter the platitudes mouthed, they see money to be raised and manipulation of polling data to be promoted. When emotions run high is exactly when judiciousness and circumspection are excluded from any legislative discussion - hardly the time to promote public policy.
The fundamental rights and freedoms of the American people should not be on the chopping block because of the acts of a jihadist following the spectacle of gay-hatred from radical Islam. Even if you despise guns, this is the moment when all our other freedoms (those that you do care about) are most at risk of being marginalized, eviscerated and duly diminished all in the name of fighting terrorism.
Bostonian's didn't demand an end to the Marathon after the bombing, nor support a ban on pressure cookers.
New Yorker's didn't demand a ban on gasoline sales in containers or the closure of Hispanic nightclubs after the 1990 firebombing that killed 87 (EIGHTY-SEVEN!) in the Bronx at the Happy Land Club.
Americans didn't call for mandatory FBI checks before truck rental agreements or clamp down on fertilizer distributors after Oklahoma City.
So why guns?
The shooter was employed by a federal security contractor, was investigated twice by the FBI for alleged terrorist sympathies and at the same time held a valid Florida concealed carry license. No new gun control law is ever going to prevent a grossly unfortunate, but entirely legitimate sale.
The position of the 100 million plus American gun owners who have never misused their firearms and believe that owning guns for self protection and defense of their way of life is a quintessential element of our American freedoms which can be summed up in the words of Ben Franklin who said,
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".
In other words, "Make the linchpin of this discussion 'guns' and nothing changes". However, if we focus on terrorism, homophobia and those sworn to end our way of life, destroy our domestic tranquility, upend our Constitution while murdering and raping those who refuse to espouse their ideology whether they are Irish, Italian, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, gays, lesbians and straights and you'll have an unstoppable army of enthusiastic voters behind you!
The Pulse Nightclub in Orlando was a "gun free zone". That wasn't much of a safeguard against jihadist terror - why the surprise?