Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: Murder at the Holocaust Museum
It would be easy (and wrong) to make some political hay out of yesterday’s shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Some 88-year-year old Nazi takes a rifle intent on mayhem, killed a guard, and was shot himself.
James W. von Brunn decided to enter a museum, a place of learning, because he didn’t like the lessons being taught. Like any coward unable to counter an argument with words, he attempted to end the conversation with a final statement of death. Those who hate are inarticulate (please pay attention you few knot heads who come here to leave racial crap of all kinds) and fearful, yearning for a world that never was and never will be. From all reports von Brunn spent a lifetime searching for racial purity, the gold of a fool.
But enough. No sermon. The actions of the deranged do not keep us off the path we are on. What happened yesterday is a tragedy and we all hear chatter that is essentially out of bounds and nutty (from the left and the right); however, the history of minority life in this country is to keep an eye on the real (the von Brunns of the world) and the what will be. By keeping our eyes on the prize, and those who would gladly take it away, we frustrate and hinder the fools of the dark.
Oh come on James – where are your usual apologies for people like this? Aren’t you going to tell us that Nazis have been suffering unfairly after being defeated in WW2? Aren’t you going to tell us how it’s all our fault because we haven’t been more sensitive to the Nazis? Aren’t you going to tell us we didn’t do enough Nazi “outreach?” Oh yeah – this was a white guy – what was I thinking.
Violence is only excusable when a black person victimizes gay people – right James?
This guy was a known nut case hater. In a different society, the religious hatred of the Jews poisoned hitlers mind and gave us WWII and 50 million deaths.
I’d be interested in knowing his religious background, and if he attended church. BTW, the Southern Poverty Law Center says that during the Bush administration the number of hate groups has increased significantly.
And not a peep out of the conservative churches. In fact, here in MD, some real right wing religious christians, so anti gay,are actually members of the constitution party – which the SPLC has on their watch list as a hate group, and some of the members have ties to the KKK.
And the growth of these hate groups was plain and simple licensed by GWB pulpit, so he could get the votes to let his super-wealthy buddies rape the middle class.
The reality is that this person was unstable and if he hadn’t been able to obtain a gun he would have used some other method (bomb, driving his car into a crowd, stabbing rampage) to inflict as much damage on other people as he could. A full ban on guns isn’t the answer to this kind of craziness. That won’t stop criminals from obtaining them. Even in countries where guns are illigal criminals can still manage to get them. Maybe what we should do is just arm everyone? There’s actually a town in Georgia that back in 1982 passed a city ordinance requiring every head of household to own a firearm and amo. Before the law passed their population was 5,242 & their crime rate was 4,332 per 100,000-higher than the national average. The latest statistics available – for the year 2005 – showed the crime rate at 2,027 per 100,000 but their population had increased to 28,189. As of 2007 they hadn’t had a murder in Kennesaw for 25 years. Maybe criminals knowing that every potential victim in that town could be armed, made them think twice about committing a crime there.
Wayne: You can’t pick and choose which speech you want to be censored. If we abolished Constitutional protection of free speech the government can screen out of society whatever it wants.
Many European countries have laws against hate speech. Every single one that does has media censorship in place blocking things that violate the government’s arbitrary standards of decency.
I certainly don’t want that here in the US. Either we defend hate speech as much as any other, or government will hate speech that doesn’t defend it’s worldview.
Jeff: Maybe because it’s news…?
Jeff: Does it not occur to you that while Jewish people were victims of the holocaust, so were LGBT people.
WHY is this commentary showing up in my 365gay NEWS feed?!?
As long as hate speech is defended as free speech, then violent acts of hate will follow. Words lead to actions.
SeanD: I’m not a member of the NRA, but all of the people that I know in it agree that certain people should not have access to guns.
Anyone with a history of mental illness, a history of crime, etc. should not be able to obtain a gun license.
The NRA campaigns for allowing law-abiding and mentally healthy citizens to have firearms… I don’t think anyone seriously thinks *everyone* should have access to guns.
I don’t even know how to address this. As a non-Jewish white male, I feel like he gave us all a black-eye. When I saw this on the news, I stared in absolute disbelief. What I saw on the news, registered, I just could not believe it. Sorry, if I sound like a blithering idiot. I have no frame of reference to process this. I think what bothers me the most about this, is that people like him have access to guns. My dad told me of an NRA slogan, which goes like this: If you outlaw guns, only criminals will have them. I am NOT a NRA member, and I don’t own a gun, but I’m not sure outlawing them is the answer either. Aren’t gun shops required to do a background check? Why was this mans history not a block to him buying a gun? Still in shock…Sean
Tragedy, and something that should never have happened…but it did. Prayers to the family of the slain security guard.
@Robert, just because he had a rifle doesn’t mean that he did it just because he had it…it happened like Equality and everyone else on this comment board mentioned, he was consumed by hate, misunderstanding and denial of the real world. His solution was simple, kill without indifference of who was there…cold hearted monster who hated everything that the museum wanted to remind us of.
Instead it served to remind us exactly why the museum was created…wish we didn’t have to lose a life for that memory, or have to suffer the indignation of the following that those who believ the crap he spewed during his life.
Robert, NYC: Many of the people who will use guns for violent crimes will find ways to obtain them anyway.
Criminologists have confirmed through research that the availability of firearms to the general public is actually inversely related to violent crime. If firearms are easy to get, the amount of violent crime actually goes down.
“Violent gun crime” is of course higher in places where guns are more available, but overall violent crime is lower. It’s a strange statistic, but that’s the reality.
I’m not saying that everyone should have guns or that all sorts of weapons should be available… But an outright ban would actually increase violent crime, and as a person who considers protecting human life a moral axiom, I cannot support anything like that.
Robert, where I agree that there is a need for gun control in our country, I believe that your associating that problem with what happened here is WAY off the mark. He had a rifle, not a handgun, not an automatic weapon.
Regardless of his weapon, he was intent on murder! All those other civilized nations you speak of still have murders and car bombs, and they also have something else in common; they have those that HATE enough to find ways of killing. That was the ONLY problem here.
Withers, great article! This shooting was so disturbing to those of us that heard about it. My mother and I generally go on and on about political ramifications and what’s what in the stories of the day. Yesterday, she said when I first saw her, “did you hear about the shooting at the Holocaust Museum?” I just said, “*sigh* yeah” and we just sat there in silence.
Kari, well said. It is awful when it takes this kind of an incident to set back the hate, but I will take it.
As long as guns are easy to obtain, why are we so outraged? Either make it more difficult to get them or don’t.
Personally, I see no reason to have a gun except if one is fighting a war, a necessary evil, this is not 1776. Notice that violent gun crime is far lower in most civilized nations where guns are either outlawed of exremely difficult to obtain. We have ourselves to blame.
All Von Brunn did was bring media attention to the racism, antisemitism and xenophobia of the far right that people have become complacent with.
As a human being I cannot understand why he did what he did and hope he will receive his just punishment. As a Jew it is a little comforting to know that the cause of hate is experiencing a major PR setback and losing some of its own members.