Once again, the debate shifts to “gun control” instead of “Why do we tolerate a vast, seething underbelly of white supremacists with military training who derive their ideology from violent eliminationist islamophobes?” Easy, low hanging, sensationalist fruit instead of the difficult solutions, I guess. (I should point out that I edited that— Page was actually an associate of Label56, which is the music label of the Maryland State Skinheads. This guy wasn’t trying to dress up his hate in chic, cloying Islamophobia, he was an out-and-out neo-nazi.)
White supremacists are a perfect example of the slapdash nature of the “more gun control would have stopped this” argument, because history has shown that white supremacists and other adherents of violent separatist ideology will use *all* methods at their disposal, the more destructive the better: William Krar constructed a cyanide bomb, in addition to obtaining a cache of illegal weapons. Dennis Mahon was just sentenced to 40 years for a mail bomb. England’s nazis seem to prefer nail bombs. Then there’s Anders Breivik, Eric Rudolph and Kevin Harpham. The white supremacist views society as a prison, and all laws as being temporary inconveniences that can be bypassed with a liberal application of time and money. They operate as if they were in the middle of a guerrilla conflict, improvising as much of their arsenals as they can.
It’s hate that strikes the match, pushes the plunger, drives the knife or pulls the trigger. Hate is like hunger— if forks were banned, the hungry would use their hands.
