A few days ago, Matt told you about a wild story out of Kentucky, where a hardcore leftist attempted to assassinate a Democratic mayoral candidate. The alleged shooter, Quintez Brown, has been charged with attempted murder and several other counts. Brown is a black nationalist, a progressive, and a former opinion writer for the state's most prominent (and notoriously anti-Republican) newspaper. He shot at Craig Greenberg, missing his mark, but grazing the candidate's clothing.
One of Brown's poorly-written, badly-argued “hot take” columns from 2019 argued that the GOP doesn't care about people's lives because they oppose...gun control:
Your life has no meaning to the irresponsible politicians in Frankfort who time and time again choose the National Rifle Association over your life. Their support for Senate Bill 150, which allows Kentuckians to carry concealed weapons without a permit, is yet another warning: They've put a price tag on your life and decided that the blood money they receive from the NRA is more valuable. Every time lawmakers vote against gun safety, and thus the lives of our most vulnerable, they show that their hearts can be as cold as the steel of the guns they praise...Politicians and lobbyists will continue to push the narrative of socialists, criminal brown immigrants and unlawful black thugs as long as it persuades you to maintain their white capitalist patriarchy masked as a democracy...To them, your life doesn't matter. And until we elect politicians who are truly committed to democracy and human rights, who truly believe that all people are created equal — rather they be undocumented immigrants, trans people, or unhoused people — we must continue to disrupt, resist and fight for humanity.
My progressive buzz word bingo card is full, from that excerpt alone. As it turns out, perhaps concealed carry laws are vital because they allow citizens to protect themselves from people like...Quintez Brown, who hates guns so very much that he obtained and used one in an effort to murder a Jewish politician. This guy delivered angry lectures about people's lives having "no meaning" to Republicans because they favored gun rights for law-abiding people, then he turned around and tried to murder someone with a gun. What a prince. You'd think that this episode would be embarrassing enough to The Cause that Brown's fellow lefties would at least have the decency to do what they typically do with narrative-busting developments: Ignore them. But some of them just can't help themselves. Just as leftists wrongly rushed to blame right-wing rhetoric and/or Sarah Palin for the totally apolitical shooting of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in 2011 (those smears are still being adjudicated to this day), the same lazy, biased impulse has played out in this episode. A Democratic politician was shot at? Must be the Right, instantly concludes a Democratic operative and Biden ad-maker:
Insane. Lunatic attempts to assassinate Louisville mayoral candidate. This is what conspiratorial right-wing rhetoric and guns everywhere gets us. I’m afraid this is going to get much, much worse https://t.co/mr2fJOiyw5
— Cliff Schecter (@cliffschecter) February 15, 2022
That's just a random guy, though, even if he's channeling the assumptions and bigotries of millions. This is far less excusable or dismissible:
Holy f*ck, @LasVegasSun. This editorial was written after the alleged shooter, Quintez Brown, was identified as a left-wing BLM activist. https://t.co/oZ2lEl71Lq pic.twitter.com/JG9Td1kQ5d
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) February 16, 2022
This editorial was published well after the alleged shooter's identity and ideology were established. But that didn't stop a major city newspaper from speculating that he may have been motivated by “extremist Republican” rhetoric. This casual, fact-free conjecture would be terrible journalism even if we didn't know who Brown was; it's downright disgraceful, given the facts that were publicly available upon publication. The suspect is a BLM/“racial justice”/anti-gun activist and columnist who has been featured on MSNBC by Joy Reid. Matt's piece included all of this information yesterday afternoon. The Las Vegas Sun editorial went live ten hours later. By the way, the Twitter account that prominently highlighted the cartoonish hypocrisy of Quintez Brown — “Defiant L's,” which simply posts contradictory screenshots of tweets, usually from leftists — has been suspended by the platform. Why? The whole account is just photos of tweets that make progressives look bad. Finally, on the general subject of crime, I'll leave you with this:
Manhattan major crimes up 46.09% YTD through 2/13.
— Reza Chowdhury (@RezaC1) February 15, 2022
All 22 precincts reporting higher figures.
Last week was 41.77%. pic.twitter.com/g67eOOmJYu
Congresswoman AOC and her “defund the police” Squad would have you believe that the explosion of violent crime in American cities (including her own) over the last year or two is attributable in some substantial way to...the expiration of a tax credit. Really. Let's hope they just keep talking:
What a sentence: “The GOP hits are most effective with center-left voters, independents and Hispanic voters, demographic groups that Democrats have struggled to attract in recent years.” https://t.co/mExLUFVERq
— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) February 16, 2022
One more thing — MKH makes a good point here. Why aren't we having one of the left's favored “national conversations” about political violence, rhetoric, etc, following this incident? We all know exactly why, don't we?
It is so strange, SO STRANGE, that we’re not having a national conversation about political violence this week, huh? Good thing this Twitter account was suspended for pointing out said political violence, tho. Eye on the ball, Twitter. https://t.co/j5czPWR1Qq
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) February 16, 2022
UPDATE - What a look for BLM and their benefactors, choosing to bail this guy out. Why was he even released at all, or eligible for relatively low bail? This was an attempted assassination and a very possible hate crime.