In the wake of yet another mass shooting, this time in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the state Senate Republicans have pulled off a little stunt: they publicly sent a letter to Governor Markell and Delaware National Guard Chief Maj. Gen. Frank Vavala.
The letter urges Markell and Vavala to come up with a plan of action regarding military personnel protection at recruiting centers. The senators offered help in finding a way to better protect military officials in the letter sent Monday.
The letter was sent last Monday, July 20. As this News Journal article notes, the National Guard was already in the process of coming up with recommendations for improving security for Guard recruiters that are stationed off base in Delaware, and the Governor approved General Vavala’s recommendations last Tuesday.
But the timing of the letter of the letter as compared to the new recommendations is not what I find curious. What is curious is that the letter was sent at all, with the grandstanding of having all Republican Senators sign it. Was a similar letter sent by the entire Republican Senate Caucus after the Sandy Hook shootings in December 2012? How about the Colorado theater shooting in 2012? Or the Louisiana theater shooting last week? Or the Santa Barbara university shootings in 2014? The Charlestown Church shooting in June?
Perhaps the Republican Senators are only concerned about the class of victim, so that you have to be in the military in order to rate in their eyes as a victim deserving of concern and protection. Or perhaps they are only concerned about the class of the assailant. The shooter in Chattanooga was a young man of Kuwaiti descent who might have been radicalized by ISIS. The shooters in Charlestown and Louisiana were white right wing terrorists. So Fighting Islamic terrorism is a concern, but right wing terrorism is not.
Got the message, Republican Senators.