Today a pastor in Texas died in a shooting. But it’s not so straightforward:<\/p>\n
On Sunday morning, the pastor of [Starrville Methodist Church] discovered a man in the bathroom holding a red bank bag that belonged to the church.<\/p>\n
The pastor drew his firearm and ordered the suspect to stop, [Starrville Methodist Church] said. The suspect moved toward the front door, then lunged, disarmed, and fatally shot the pastor.\u00a0[CNN<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So the fellow didn’t bring his own firearm to the party. Never mind that the encouragement of everyone carrying a firearm by conservatives led to this tragedy – this is what really bothers me:<\/p>\n
The case will be investigated as a capital murder and presented to the Smith County District Attorney’s Office, Smith said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The pastor<\/em> clearly menaced the man with a gun, and while it may stretch credulity to suggest the guy was clearly engaged in self-defense, it obviously was not planned in advance; indeed, in the struggle over the gun it may have been accidental, even self-inflicted.<\/p>\n
But this isn’t just over the death of a pastor. It’s also vengeance over the revelation of the flaws in a religious tenet of the conservatives. Everyone needs a gun for self-protection!<\/em> they proclaim. This was common to read back when I was still subscribing to REASON Magazine<\/strong><\/em>, and just six months ago, when a MAGA-friend sent me mail that sounded like a right-wing website regurgitation, the same assertion was part of that mail.<\/p>\n
But it does little to assure self-protection to own a gun, as I noted here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
But this is not acceptable to the doctrinaire far-right conservative; this very occurrence is a kick in the teeth of said doctrinaire conservative, and therefore, rather than accept that this may be nothing more than manslaughter, they proclaim they’ll be investigating it as capital murder.<\/p>\n
Rather than considering this may have been a foolish pastor who should never have had a gun in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today a pastor in Texas died in a shooting. But it’s not so straightforward: On Sunday morning, the pastor of [Starrville Methodist Church] discovered a man in the bathroom holding a red bank bag that belonged to the church. The pastor drew his firearm and ordered the suspect to stop, \u2026 Continue reading