Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

Eyewitnesses to the killing of nine innocent people at a community college in rural Oregon say the gunman specifically targeted Christians and was known to be disdainful of organized religion which raises the question of just how much this killer was influenced by the politically correct “hate speech” routinely aimed at Christians in today’s America.

According to various news outlets, 26 year-old Christopher Harper-Mercer killed nine people and wounded at least seven others at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon yesterday morning. Harper-Mercer lost his own life in a shootout with police when they responded to the scene.

The Roseburg News Review said the incident happened at around 10:38 a.m. when the gunman fired a shot through a window in Snyder Hall. Kortney Moore, 18, who was in the room attending a writing class, saw the shot strike her teacher in the head.

The shooter quickly entered the classroom and started commanding people to lay on the floor.

Stacy Boylen, whose daughter was wounded in the rampage, told CNN that “[He started] asking people one by one what their religion was. ‘Are you a Christian?’ he would ask them, and if you’re a Christian, stand up. And they would stand up and he said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you are going to see God in just about one second.’ And then he shot and killed them.”

Other witnesses confirmed the report, saying that those who denied being Christian were only shot in the leg.

Police were said to have responded very quickly to the scene and within minutes, Harper-Mercer, was gunned down by police outside one of the classrooms.

Investigators have since learned from on-line profiles that Harper had a fascination with the terror tactics of the Irish Republican Army and had Nazi memorabilia in his possession.

CBS News also reported that the killer had posted a blog about Vester Lee Flanagan, who murdered a Virginia newswoman and cameraman last month, saying that it “seems like the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”

The Oregon shooting now brings the national death toll from mass shootings to 294 this year.

Once again, the political class called for gun restrictions, including the President who lamented the fact that America is “the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.”

However, the trend toward disarming the nation may have played a role in the incident as the school had decided last year to stop arming its security guards. At the time of the attack, only one unarmed security officer was on campus.

Instead of harping on gun restrictions, lawmakers and pundits should also start calling on those groups of people in this nation who repeatedly single out Christians for attack, calling them bigots and hate-mongers and even running them out of their jobs simply because of their beliefs, to tone down their rhetoric.

This also applies to lawmakers who speak out in defense of lopsided and poorly written anti-discrimination bills by referring to those who conscientiously object to same-sex marriage or transgenderism as “lawbreakers”. These men and women need to be more mindful of the rights of all citizens when crafting laws rather than cater to special interest groups, and be especially careful about their rhetoric and any any speech that even hints at demonizing opposing points-of-view.

This kind of incendiary language only serves as fuel for the mentally unfit and is akin to printing a target on the backs of anyone who espouses the Judeo-Christian point-of-view.

The time has come to stop letting political correctness determine what is, and what is not, hate speech. Any kind of hate-speech has no place in a civilized, pluralistic society.

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