Daily Verse | 1 Samuel 16:7b
The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at
the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

A happy Wednesday morning to you, Broadsiders, especially those of you who have recently subscribed. Many thanks for your interest in what we discuss here. People who live in glass houses should stay dressed.

So there was a massacre in Boulder, Colorado on Monday afternoon by an angry 21-year-old. Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, an anti-Trump Muslim born in Syria in 1999, killed ten people, including 51-year-old police officer Eric Talley. Talley was a devout Christian, husband and father of seven children. Other victims are being remembered, too.

The mass shooting in Boulder follows the mass shooting on March 16 in Atlanta, Georgia, in which eight people were killed—including six Asian-Americans—at three different massage parlors. The shooting suspect in that case, Robert Aaron Long, also 21, claimed responsibility and reportedly told authorities that he wanted to end his sexual addiction.

No motive for the Boulder rampage has been established yet, but former classmates described Alissa as “a pretty cool kid until something made him mad, and then whatever made him mad, he went over the edge – way too far.”

Hernandez added: “The sad thing about it is that if you really were to get to know him, he was a good guy … But you could tell there was a dark side in him. If he did get ticked off about something, within a split second, it was like if something takes over, like a demon. He’d just unleash all his anger,” the [Denver Post] reported.

“Like a demon.”

The New York Times reported that Alissa “was previously known to the F.B.I. because he was linked to another individual under investigation by the bureau, according to law enforcement officials.” Oh.

I suppose the F.B.I. could be forgiven for not more closely monitoring a raging young Muslim male who bought an “assault” weapon because they’ve dedicated their entire force to investigating the specter of violent white Christian nationalist right-wing militia extremists who, at any moment we are assured, will overthrow the totally not fraudulently-elected administration in Washington D.C.

Speaking of the Manchurian candidate, Resident Biden’s reaction to the shooting was to spout off about gun control.

“I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take commonsense steps that will save the lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act.”

[…]

“These are bills that received votes of both Republicans and Democrats in the House. This is not and should not be a partisan issue; this is an American issue. It will save lives—American lives—and we have to act,” Biden said. “We should also ban assault weapons in the process.”

Biden added, “We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again. I got that done when I was a senator. It passed. It was law for the longest time, and it brought down these mass killings. We should do it again.”

Wait wait wait. Wait a minute. “It brought down these mass killings.” That’s at minimum a debatable claim but more likely an outright lie. Several studies show that the 1994 assault weapons ban did nothing of the sort. A story by ProPublica reported (with my emphasis) that,

A definitive study of the 1994 law – which prohibited the manufacture and sale of semiautomatic guns with “military-style features” such pistol grips or bayonet mounts as well as magazines holding more than ten rounds of ammunition – found no evidence that it had reduced overall gun crime or made shootings less lethal. “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence,” the Department of Justice-funded study concluded in 2004. “Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

The knee jerk reaction from Joe is to flog failed policies and assault Second Amendment rights. But try he must, even if it’s done with executive orders.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday that the Biden administration is considering a range of potential actions on gun control, including executive actions, in the wake of a mass shooting on Monday.

When asked about whether there will be new executive action on gun violence, Psaki responded, “We are certainly considering a range of levers, including working through legislation, including executive actions to address not just gun safety measures but violence in communities.”

What’s missing here (and in all talk of “gun control”) is acknowledgement of the demon. Don’t you find it interesting that the words used to describe Alissa concluded, “there was a dark side in him” and “it was like if something takes over, like a demon”?

When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. (Matthew 8:28)

There are no executive actions that will prevent gun violence or “violence in communities.” Such gestures amount to nothing more than tilting at windmills. The only thing that will prevent such horrific crimes in the future are changed hearts, which come too late for the victims of Mr. Alissa.