Bette Midler Just Brilliantly Took On Gun Supporters Over The Orlando Massacre
Bette Midler has taken to Twitter yet again to uphold the liberal cause, speaking hard truths in 140 characters. Last night, in response to the Pulse massacre, she tweeted: “Ban Muslims from entering the US? Orlando shooter was born in US! Why do we let homegrown terrorists get their hands on assault weapons?” Following that, she unleashed a tweetstorm of important points that desperately need to be discussed in American society.
“It makes me so sad and it is difficult to comprehend how the American public devolved to this.”
— Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) June 13, 2016
It’s time to ban the AR-15. Come on Congress, grow a pair. There are plenty of guns people can own. People don’t need assault rifles.
— Andy Cohen (@Andy) June 13, 2016
There is something profoundly wrong with a nation that allows its citizens to be slaughtered the way we have. We are ill. Maybe terminally.
— Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) June 13, 2016
Yesterday President Obama made his 15th speech honoring those killed in mass slayings. 15 times! Where is our shame! Where is our honor?
— Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) June 13, 2016
Midler hit the nail exactly on the head. It is tragic that radical Islam ideologies can inspire crimes of hatred, but Republicans, and Trump in particular, have been flagrantly ignoring the fact that Omar Mateen was natural-born American who acted out of passionate homophobia and had easy access to deadly weapons, as opposed to a nonsensical and convoluted “radical ideology” that apparently included allegiances not only to the Sunni Islamic State but also to the Lebanese Shiite militia of Hezbollah, two groups that are sworn enemies.
When combined with the new revelations that show that Mateen was bipolar, a regular at that particular gay club and was likely a closet, self-hating LGBT American himself. The Orlando attack was not directed by any terrorist organization outside the US, and was committed by one of our own citizens. In other words, as Midler so eloquently points out, stopping immigration or entry into America from Islamic countries would have done nothing to prevent the Orlando shooting.
The Pulse shooting could have been prevented if homophobia was not rampant in America, and if guns were not abundant and easy to acquire. The lessons from Orlando are lessons about how America should govern itself, not about how we should think about the rest of the world. The legacy of Pulse calls for deep introspection into the heart of America’s problems with gun violence and minorities within its own borders; only then will things change.
