Mitch Perry
Good morning, everyone.
Not to start the week off on a rough note, but can we reflect for a moment on what happened at those two military sites in Chattanooga last Thursday?
As we all know by now, a naturalized citizen from Kuwait ended up killing four U.S. Marines and one sailor and wounded two others. There are reports that Mohammod Abdulazeez killed because he was upset over the United States’ policy in the Middle East.
In reaction, Rick Scott signed an executive order over the weekend closing all six of the state’s storefront National Guard recruitment offices and directed staff to move to local National Guard armories. “The state will take any and every measure available to secure military personnel against the planned attacks of ISIS, including but not limited to securing the work areas and recruiting stations for the Florida National Guard,” the executive order said.
Scott said National Guard troops would return to the storefront centers once officials determine how to improve security, which might include installing bulletproof glass.
It’s not all about guns, of course not. But what Chattanooga and Charleston have in common was a deranged guy with a gun and with hate in his heart killed some innocent people.
As USA Today reports that in the three years since James Holmes killed 12 people at a screening of a Bantam movie in Colorado in 2012, there have been 387 people dead in mass killings in the U.S.; 78 mass killing incidents and 119 children slain. In this year alone: 78 mass killings; 15 mass killings; 75 people killed, among them 13 children.
The death of San Francisco resident Kate Steinle wasn’t a mass killing, as she died at the hands of a gunshot from an undocumented immigrant, setting off a whole political firestorm. But again, he had that gun to kill her.
Are we as a society just okay with this? Or is it just one of those things that happens in a free society? Just asking.
In other news..
David Jolly gets into the GOP race for U.S. Senate today. A look at how the 42-year-old made it to this stage of his career. And a look at his voting record in Congress.
And speaking of CD 13, we met up with the only Democrat who has actually got into the race to win the seat next year, Eric Lynn.
