By Hank Beckman -
The victims in Las Vegas weren't even cold before our friends on the Left began assigning blame to the usual suspects.
Hillary Clinton, who for some odd reason simply refuses to accept clear evidence that half the country doesn't share her belief that she ever had a rendezvous with destiny, tweeted "Our grief isn't enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA and work together to stop this from happening again."
U.S. House Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) asked House Speaker Paul Ryan in a tweet, "How many Americans have to die before you do your job? Allow us to have a debate and a vote."
According to Jimmy Kimmel, the self-appointed moral conscience of the nation and expert on any number of public policy issues, the culprits are Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and they "should be praying for God to forgive them for letting the gun lobby run this country."
Alyssa Milano, completely unable to be bothered by details, simply tweeted "Sensible gun control NOW!"
Never mind that most proposed remedies put forth are almost completely lacking in anything like specifics; forget that as yet we still know almost nothing about what might have motivated this cretin to decide to slaughter innocent people; disregard the fact that he probably was in violation of any number of laws already in place.
And seldom noted by the Left is the fact that a city with traditionally strict gun control laws, like Chicago, can and do have extremely high rates of gun violence. As even Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CAL) recently said, no law would have prevented this tragedy.
In today's hyper-partisan atmosphere–made worse than usual by the Democrats essentially losing their minds over the election of Donald Trump–the important thing is that blame must be assigned, and it must have a Republican face. (preferably that of a white male, as Michelle Obama recently illustrated when discussing the public's lack of faith in politicians).
So the fault rests not just with the perpetrator of this heinous act, but must be shared by mostly Republican legislators and private citizens, who were nowhere near the scene, but who support Second Amendment rights and are wary of enacting stricter gun laws.
Or, as Lady Gaga so bluntly tweeted, "blood is on the hands of those with the power to legislate."
If that be the case, on whose hands might we find the blood of Kate Steinle?
Steinle was the 32-year-old California woman murdered while strolling with her family on the San Francisco waterfront, shot by an illegal alien who had previously been deported five times and compiled a lengthy criminal record.
Although the case is still pending, the man admitted to firing the shot, claiming it was an accident. We do know from various media sources that he favored San Francisco because of its policy of being a sanctuary city.
Jamiel Shaw, Jr., a 17-year-old high school football star in Los Angeles, was executed gangland-style by a gang member in the country illegally. Shaw was a few blocks from his own house when the illegal alien challenged him as to what gang he belonged, then shot him to death, the fatal shot delivered to his head while flat on his back with his hands up to protect himself.
And then there were Sarah Root, a 21-year-old Nebraska woman killed by an illegal in a drunk driving incident the day after she graduated from college; and Arizona resident, Grant Ronnebeck, also 21, shot to death behind the counter of a convenience store when he apparently wasn't fast enough in producing a pack of cigarettes for an illegal alien.
Since the Left insists the blame for gun violence must be shared with people who only supported laws or policies, does that mean the officials, politicians, citizen's groups and celebrities who support sanctuary cities share the blame in Kate Steinle's death?
There were public officials who enacted the 1979 law–Special Order 40–prohibiting Los Angeles police from inquiring about a resident's immigration status, which prevented police from asking Jamiel Shaw's killer from facing deportation after an
earlier arrest for gun violations and resisting arrest. Do they share the blame for his death.
How about the public officials who failed to remove Grant Ronnebeck's killer from the country, even though he had a previous conviction for burglary. Any blood on their hands?
Lest anyone get the impression that I'm just throwing out anecdotal evidence and overhyping the issue to score partisan points myself, ample evidence exists that the problem of Americans losing their lives and being assaulted by people that are in the country illegally is a serious problem.
According to a 2015 letter to Sen. Charles Grassley (REP-IA) from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, between 2010 and 2014, 121 illegals faced homicide charges after being released by ICE.
The Texas Department of Public Safety released statistics from the years 2011-2017 showing 1,256 criminal aliens facing homicide charges and 6,651 arrested for sex offenses.
Those arrests resulted in 527 convictions for homicide and 3,059 for sex offenses.
A Government Accountability Office survey showed 56,000 criminal aliens in federal prisons for fiscal year 2010 and another 296,000 in state and local jails for fiscal year 2009.
The survey also studied criminal alien offenses between the years 1955 and 2010 and concluded that while about half were held for immigration and drug offenses, a staggering 70,000 were arrested for sex offenses.
Another 25,064 aliens were arrested on homicide charges.
These numbers are obviously not the complete story of crimes by illegals in recent years, and we should resist the temptation to exaggerate the problem.
Some of the homicide statistics might overlap, and other cases might yet to have been adjudicated. Only 66 percent of those arrested in Texas were identified as in the country illegally by The Department of Homeland Security, although that doesn't mean the rest were legal, only that they had no contact with DHS.
And some might have actually turned out to be legitimately innocent; that happens sometimes. But it's also not unheard of for guilty parties to walk free.
So unless our law enforcement community is extremely incompetent, it is hard to view these statistics and come to any other conclusion but that violent crimes committed by people in the country illegally is a significant problem–and growing. The GAO survey highlights the fact that the vast majority of all criminal alien offenses occurred since 1990.
All politicians worth the title have a finally attuned sense of who best fills the need of an enemy that will rally their base; it's not something that is particular to Democrats. Republicans love to rail against trial lawyers, public sector unions and overreaching social justice warriors.
But when addressing the issue of public safety, we should expect at least a good faith effort to being intellectually consistent.
I don't expect anyone from the open borders crowd to beg God's forgiveness. But they might at least have the decency to apologize to Jamiel Shaw, Sr.
