Bonfire of the Inanities

After the jihadi terrorist shooting in Orlando in which 49 people were murdered in cold blood and more than 50 injured, it would be reasonable to expect a serious debate about national security in America. Instead our leaders are spewing inanities, writes Jonah Goldberg in NRO.

Before the blood had been mopped up in Orlando, the president and the woman seeking to replace him immediately tried to make the second-worst Islamic terror attack on American soil into anything other than Islamic terrorism. Over and over again, news outlets uncritically reported on the “common-sense” effort to implement more stringent background checks and get rid of automatic weapons, AR-15s, and other “assault” weapons. Well, automatic weapons — i.e., machine guns — are already essentially banned for civilians. … Moreover, the FBI conducted two extensive investigations into the shooter — a background check far more exhaustive than any proposed checks.

The terror-watch-list ban on gun purchases that Democrats now desire is a constitutional horror show if you believe, as the ACLU does, that the federal government shouldn’t be allowed to unilaterally draw up secret lists to deny people their civil rights.

Of course, Democrats insist they’re just being pragmatic, which is why Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) thinks the constitutional requirement for due process is “killing us.” What he didn’t mention is that the Democrats’ proposal is opposed by the head of the FBI because it would make tracking terrorists more difficult. Apparently, “common sense” requires trampling the Constitution to make the FBI’s job harder.

“A ban on Muslims would not have stopped this attack. Neither would a wall. I don’t know how one builds a wall to keep the Internet out,” Hillary Clinton said to guffaws from the crowd at a campaign event in Virginia. “Not one of Donald Trump’s reckless ideas would have saved a single life in Orlando.”

OK, but her proposals wouldn’t have saved any lives either. Moreover, this is the woman who insisted her illegal private e-mail server was secure because it was guarded by armed Secret Service agents. Ironically, their guns do save lives, but they’re no more effective than a wall at combating the Internet.

Despite the NYT’s claim that Mr. Mateen, the shooter, was driven by hatred toward gays and lesbians, the killer, a registered Democrat, stated clearly during the shooting and for months prior that his motivation stemmed from radical Islamism.