Words are important; we all know that. Yet there are times when criticizing the words of another with your own only highlights a lack of understanding on your part. Yes, there are indeed times when saying nothing is more beneficial. I’m reminded of an old adage that says, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas should keep that saying on a note card tucked in a shirt pocket where he can refer to it frequently. However, being a left-leaning Democrat, it’s doubtful that he would pay it any mind.
By now, we all know about the terrible shooting that took place at the parade that was supposed to be a celebration of the Chiefs Super Bowl win. Twenty-three people were shot. One was killed, Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a mother of two and the host of “Taste of Tejano."
According to Police Chief Stacey Graves, 22 people were injured ranging in age from 8 years old to 47. Eleven of those were children. Police initially detained three juveniles but released one they determined wasn’t involved in the shooting. The two that were detained are to this point being shrouded in mystery, some of which is understandable. Defendants aged 17 and under in Missouri are typically adjudicated through the juvenile system, which is far more private than the system for adults. Names of the accused are not released, nor are police documents such as probable cause statements.
However, according to Lynn Urban, a professor who chairs the Criminal Justice and Criminology Department at the University of Central Missouri, in cases involving serious crimes such as murder, juveniles as young as 12 can be certified for trial as adults, although federal law prohibits the death penalty for anyone under age 18 at the time of the crime.
Last week while speaking about the crime, Gov. Mike Parsons used the term “thugs” to describe the shooters, a term that I find perfectly acceptable. They killed an innocent woman and shot many others. I have heard the term used many times and I myself have used it to describe individuals. Never, not even once, have I heard anyone try to make the term racial. A thug is an individual who commits a violent, usually senseless act. They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors and are certainly not confined to any racial group.
However, the term triggered Mayor Lucas. In an interview with Steve Kraske on KCUR, Lucas said:
I have respect for the governor. We get along well. I disagree strongly with how he would describe that situation. I certainly do think this was criminal activity. It was lawlessness, and I think that that’s troubling. But “thugs” is a dog whistle in the most classic sense.
I’ve seen this dog whistle time and again. There’s this kind of giant conservative theory on social media now that the reason these mug shots haven’t been shown is because the purported defendants are black, and if it were a white defendant, we would have just shown them. That is absolutely preposterous. There are protections to juveniles.
Mayor, we do understand that juveniles get more identity protection, for obvious reasons. That said, we also know that the MSM has a propensity to enforce those protections much more stringently when the suspects are black, Muslim, transgender, or another faction of the population that is part of the left’s agenda.
In fact, Ann Coulter and Bill Maher had that very discussion on Maher’s most recent show.
As they were talking about ways to stop these types of incidents, Maher noted that “we don’t know who did this shooting,” prompting Coulter to interrupt. “We have some idea,” she said. Maher paused and asked “what?” Coulter continued.
COULTER: If it were a white man shooting, we’d know.
MAHER: Well, we don’t know. I mean they haven’t —
COULTER: That’s how we know it’s not a white man. I can tell you that much.
MAHER: You think they were repressing that reporting?
COULTER: They wouldn’t tell us about the transgender woman that shot up the Christian school for, what, like a year? Oh, San Bernardino out here. Remember the crazy terrorist Muslims? That’s when I first noticed. Hmm, they’re not telling us who it is. It’s not a white male.
The longer they go without telling you, it’s not a white male.
MAHER: Well for this one, for right now, as of Friday night, February 16th…
COULTER: We know.
MAHER: We don’t officially know. Okay, you know, you have special powers.
COULTER: We’ll see.
She’s not wrong, and the mayor’s preemptive comments seem to validate those suspicions. Accusing the governor of blowing a “dog whistle,” a term used in politics that refers to a message or phrase intended to be heard only by certain groups, was revealing. The attempt to insinuate the term “thug” as coded language, typically used to demonize black people as criminals, was also telling.
It’s sad that the left must bring race into everything. Instead of focusing on the victims, Lucas wants to deflect the conversation, hoping the public will feel guilty because the governor called the shooters thugs.
Then in the vein of never letting a crisis go to waste, gun control naturally reared its ugly head. During the interview with KCUR, Parson was forced to deflect questions about stricter gun control measures in the wake of the shooting. Instead he pointed out the futility of the gun laws in Chicago.
Chicago’s got the strictest gun laws in the nation, and they lead the nation in homicides. You got to have a real conversation about what is the root problem because, you know, their laws are not working by no means.
The Republican governor then pointed out that more incarcerations could be a deterrent for violent crimes, saying that “we’re not putting very many people in jail.”
I don’t think there’s nothing in the world wrong with having these discussions of what happened with these minors. People are doing these kinds of crimes and I think it’s much more than a gun, I’ll be honest with you. Because I think we have allowed people to commit crimes with no accountability.
Race and gun control, two of the left’s favorite talking points. Instead of concentrating on empathy for the victims, the mayor would rather focus on setting up a pity defense for the shooters and denying that their leftist judges and weak incarceration records contribute to the problem. It’s always the agenda—at any cost.
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