In a lengthy blog post published on his presidential campaign website Tuesday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) claimed the father of Oregon gunman Chris Harper Mercer was a “complete failure” and demanded that he apologize for the shooting.
In the blog post — titled “We fill Our Culture With Garbage, And We Reap The Result” — Jindal blamed the prevalence of mass shootings in America on “deep and serious cultural decay in our society,” jumping from a condemnation of violence in media and a reference to abortion to a discussion of the reported absence of the father of the Harper Mercer in the young man’s life.
“This killer’s father is now lecturing us on the need for gun control and he says he has no idea how or where his son got the guns,” Jindal wrote. “Of course he doesn’t know. You know why he doesn’t know? Because he is not, and has never been in his son’s life. He’s a complete failure as a father, he should be embarrassed to even show his face in public. He’s the problem here.”
The father, Ian Mercer, has told the media he believes the shooting wouldn’t have happened if gun control laws had prevented his son from accessing the 13 weapons linked to him during the investigation into the shooting, which left 10 dead including Harper Mercer. It’s been reported that Harper-Mercer’s mother Laurel Harper had bragged prior to the shooting about the stockpile of firearms she had been collecting, and that she and her son were frequent visitors of the local gun range. According to the New York Times, Laurel Harper and Ian Mercer had divorced about a decade ago, and Ian had not seen his son in the two years since Chris Harper-Mercer moved to Oregon with his mother.
“He brags that he has never held a gun in his life and that he had no idea that his son had any guns. Why didn’t he know? Because he failed to raise his son. He should be ashamed of himself, and he owes us all an apology,” Jindal wrote. “When he was asked what his relationship was with his son, he said he hadn’t seen him in a while because he lived with his mother. Case Closed.”
Jindal went on to call out “shallow and simple minded liberals” for blaming “pieces of hardware for the problem.”
“If anyone is at all serious about changing any of this, they must address the root problems, and those are cultural decay, the glorification of evil, the devaluation of human life, the breakdown of the family, and specifically the complete abdication of fathers,” Jindal wrote.
