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Mateen Is The NRA/Republican/Trumpian Poster Boy of Gun “Rights” (Proving the GOP/NRA “Won” Because if Mateen Could Get Assault Weapons… Anyone Can)

Mateen Is The NRA/Republican/Trumpian Poster Boy of Gun “Rights” (Proving the GOP/NRA “Won” Because if Mateen Could Get Assault Weapons… Anyone Can)

Last updated on: June 13, 2016 at 3:35 am by Frank Schaeffer

Mateen Is The NRA/Republican/Trumpian Poster Boy of Gun “Rights” (Proving the GOP/NRA “Won” Because if Mateen Could Get Assault Weapons… Anyone Can) 2016-06-13T03:35:58-06:00 Frank Schaeffer

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Take a good look at the face of the Orlando killer. He beat his wife, spewed anti-gay hate and was investigated by the FBI… Twice. And thanks to the NRA and their Republican backers in Congress he could STILL purchase weapons of war.

Omar Mateen is the poster boy for the NRA and Republican Party. They have been successful in keeping weapons of terror and mass killing in the hands of terrorists.

The Republicans who have kept the NRA flourishing are now working to keep angry unstable young men–and other ISIS members or wannabe members–armed.

The NRA’s obsession with keeping easy access to military-level assault weapons has merged with the aims of ISIS.

The GOP, NRA and ISIS are now effectively one and the same: perpetrators and/or facilitators of terror.

And Americans who want real background checks and a real ban on weapons of mass destruction (that’s most Americans) are the common enemy of ISIS, the NRA and the Republicans.

We want peace. They want killing. Period.

The GOP now stands for keeping terror legal. The NRA and ISIS have the same needs and aims: limitless easy access to weapons of mass destruction.

Thanks to the Republicans and the NRA keeping assault weapons legal Mateen shot one-third of the people inside the club, including many who escaped onto the street despite being injured or bloodied, The New York Times reported. He was killed by police before dawn several hours after the assault turned into a hostage standoff in which police were also attacked. This was made possible because the NRA and Republicans have kept the sale of ammunition clips with hundreds of rounds feeding into military weapons legal.

Government officials, led by President Obama’s televised address to the nation, called it an anti-LGBTQ hate crime and terror act, and said the FBI would use every resource to investigate what happened and why.

In contrast, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, gloated on Twitter, saying, “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism.” His response to hate was to call for… more hate not just of gays, but of all Muslims too.

Hate and easy access to guns, are Trump’s, the GOP’s, ISIS’s and the NRA’s “family values.”

In Orlando the agenda of the NRA, Trump and the gun industry became one and the same: keep deadly weapons of war in the hands of killers, even keep gun background checks so porous that someone twice investigated for ties to radical Islam can buy and use guns…

and then blame “the Muslims.”

and then blame President Obama, who Trump claimed as a “birther” wasn’t a “real American.”

When it comes to lone wolf terrorists who link themselves to terror groups, it is the NRA and the Republicans now led by Trump, who are their facilitators. Had assault weapons been banned, had anyone with terror or domestic abuse links been prohibited from buying guns Mateen would not have been armed and motivated to kill gay people.

What’s clear is that Mateen was a violent man. He physically abused his ex-wife, she told the press Sunday, saying that she had to be rescued by her family. That incident was reported to police and she believed he was mentally ill, CNN said. /Mateen also was trained to use guns and worked as a security guard since 2007, including with the use of guns, despite everything.

One former co-worker said he was prone to using racial, ethnic and sexual slurs as the Times reported. He spoke of killing people.

His comments concerning overseas Islamic radicals prompted co-workers to call the FBI, which tracked him twice—most recently in 2014. Their inquiries closed for lack of evidence, aljazeera.com reported. Sateen also posted pictures online of himself wearing New York City Police Department clothes.

Despite this history that included domestic abuse, other violent threats and two FBI investigations, Mateen obtained state licenses in Florida to buy the firearms used in the massacre, the media reported.

Police said he had a handgun and an AR-15 military-style rifle, which can rapidly fire many rounds from huge clips of ammunition and hit targets with high accuracy. The NRA and the Republicans should be proud of their tireless efforts to keep anyone and everyone armed with weapons like this.

The Washington Post reported that similar military-style NRA-Republican-gun manufactures-lobby weaponry was used by killers in most all of the recent mass killings across America: in San Bernardino, CA, in a shooting that killed 14 and wounded 20; in Newtown, CN, that killed 28 and wounded 2; and in Aurora, CO, that killed 12 and wounded 58. According to a database by Mother Jones, in 79 mass shootings since 1982 that it investigated, 63 were committed with legally purchased guns.

Connecticut’s U.S. senators blamed Congress for the killing of at least 50 people early Sunday at an Orlando club, saying lawmakers’ inaction on gun control makes them “complicit” in the shooting rampage.

Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, both Democrats and vocal gun control advocates, represent the community of Newtown, where a gunman fatally shot 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

“This phenomenon of near constant mass shootings happens only in America – nowhere else,” Murphy said Sunday. “Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence. This doesn’t have to happen, but this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing – again.”

Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace

Available now on Amazon

Follow Frank on Twitter www.twitter.com/frank_schaefferSee Frank’s paintings http://www.frankschaefferart.com/Follow Frank on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/frank.schaeffer.16 Contact Frank at http://www.frankschaeffer.com

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