We Need to Start Holding the Republican Party Accountable for Xenophobic Violence

"The mother of one of the shooters called the cops and warned them that her son was a violent Islamophobe, and that he had lifted some of the household firearms-more about that later-and was on his way to kill some people. From The New York Times: The police were alarmed and began a desperate hunt for the two teenagers. They were somewhere in California's second largest city, a sprawling community of 1.4 million people nestled amid palms and purple jacarandas."

"A license plate reader seemed to show them near a mall, and officers rushed there. Then, they converged on the high school one of the teenagers attended. Those turned out to be the wrong places. The teens' target was the mosque, the police said. They shot and killed three people there, including a security guard who worked for the mosque and whose actions, police said, likely saved lives. And then the teens killed themselves, the police said."

"The NYT, of course, is careful to place these events amid "increased threats and acts of violence against religious institutions in America fueled by the wars in the Middle East." But the xenophobic anger lobbied specifically against our Muslim fellow citizens dates back much longer. It has been encouraged, to put it mildly, by the Republican party base and the people it inflicts on the rest of us through its congressional delegations. Meanwhile, the president, has handed command-and-control over to various oil sheikhs."

"And, as always, the problem here is guns. If"

A mother contacted police warning that her son was a violent Islamophobe and that he had taken household firearms while going to kill people. Police launched an urgent search for two teenagers in a large San Diego area, using a license plate reader to guide officers to locations that turned out to be incorrect. Officers later converged on the high school one teenager attended, while the intended target was a mosque. The teenagers shot and killed three people at the mosque, including a security guard whose actions likely prevented additional deaths. The teenagers then killed themselves. The violence was framed as part of broader threats against religious institutions, while xenophobic anger toward Muslim citizens was described as having deeper roots and being encouraged by political forces, with guns identified as a central factor.

Read at Esquire