GOP Baseball Practice Shooting Looms Over ‘Violent Extremism’ Senate Hearing

UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 15: Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., arrives in the Capitol for a vote on Thursday, September 15, 2016. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
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Just a few hours after members of Congress, staffers and Capitol Police officers were reportedly shot at a baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, the chair and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee used their opening statements at a hearing on “violent extremism” to address the morning’s violence.

Committee Chair Ron Johnson (R-WI) opened by emphasizing that the committee’s priority is “countering extremism and violence in any form, including Islamist terrorism,” and added: “There’s no way anybody can deny we have a problem worldwide in terms of extremism and violence. We witnessed it just a few hours ago on a baseball field for a charity event.”

Republican lawmakers who were at the baseball practice described the suspected shooter, who was killed by police, as a middle-aged white male, and police say they have found no connection to international terrorism.

Yet Johnson continue to connect the morning’s tragedy to the hearing, which focused on Islamist terrorism specifically. “I appreciate those who stand up and tell the truth and describe reality in a world that is very, very dangerous, in a world that doesn’t want to hear the truth and reality,” he said, indicating the invited witnesses. Johnson then spent several minutes talking about how much the United States welcomes immigrants and how those immigrants must “accept constitutional law” and “assimilate.”

“We’ve got to get to the point where people feel free and safe to go practice in the morning on a baseball field, or walk a street, or raise their family,” he said.

In her own opening statement, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), the top Democrat on the committee, also referenced the shooting, but seemed to hit back at Johnson for appearing to draw a connection between the morning’s tragedy and Islam.

“Make no mistake about it: what we saw this morning was evil,” she said. “I hope that this hearing doesn’t stray from the fact that we should be focusing on the evil, on violence, on enforcing our criminal laws against evil and violence. We should be focusing on those people who twist and distort any religion, be it Islam or Christianity or Buddhism. They’re an exception to the rule, not the rule. We should not focus on religion and the freedoms our country embraces.”

“Our danger, at least to date, has not been from those who slip into the country unnoticed, who illegally cross our borders, or who are seeking refuge from a humanitarian crisis,” she added. “That’s not where the danger has come from. It has come from people who are Americans, or who are legally in this country, who have been radicalized. We face threats from a range of sources, including white supremacists, eco-terrorists, ISIS-sympathizers—there is a long list.”

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Notable Replies

  1. Ron Johnson is truly one of the stupidest members of the US Senate. Please stop trying to make everything about “Islamic terrorism.”

  2. I bet, if you trace the shooter’s history back, you’ll find that his ancestors were immigrants. Another radicalized European…

  3. Too bad the GOP congress refuses to fund studies on gun violence. A little reality based data might shed some light on where to focus our efforts.

    I’m sad every time I think of the kids and teachers who were killed and witnessed the killings at Sandy Hook. If that didn’t move people to do something, I don’t know what will. I’m not really sad about the shooting today, because the people who were shot had the means to do something about it, and they have refuse to do anything. I’m not happy they were shot. I’m happy no one was killed. But I am not really hopeful that anything will change. It is the stupidest thing in the world to let people have assault weapons designed for war in a civilian setting.

  4. It is the stupidest thing in the world to let people have assault weapons designed for war in a civilian setting. Yep. Absolutely no rational reason for that.

  5. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who, in suit and tie, stopped by the crime scene to pray and was viscerally angry about his colleagues being attacked. “And the center of America is disappearing, and the violence is appearing in the streets, and it’s coming from the left.”

    “The divisions within the country, people that can’t accept the results of the election that are determined to try to take this country down, take this organization down,” he said. “This city was filled up with demonstrations the day after the inauguration, where you couldn’t drive down the streets. And we’ve had demonstrations every week since then, sometimes different topics. We do need to focus on what’s happening to the culture in this country.” (WaPo)

    Yep. Its always those violent leftists demonstrating and stuff.

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