In the aftermath of Dylann Roof�s racist murders in Charleston, 
the Internet was deluged with think pieces about whiteness, 
white privilege, white racism, and the legacy of American racial 
injustice. While Roof�s individual agency in the murders was 
acknowledged, his actions were deemed inseparable not just from 
America�s gun culture but also from its racist past. Flags had 
to come down, statues had to be toppled, and even Confederate 
bones had to be exhumed.

What narrative will prevail after yesterday�s horrific shooting 
in Virginia? Vester Lee Flanagan, a gay black man, was every bit 
as race-obsessed as Roof. Former colleagues report a long 
history of unhinged behavior on Flanagan�s part. The anecdotes 
stretch back for years.

As the Daily Beast reported, he �kept getting fired, kept 
threatening co-workers, and kept claiming he was the real 
victim� of racism and homophobia. But rather than hurting his 
career, one former colleague said that his race and sexual 
orientation gave him new chances: �The fact that he kept his job 
was because he was an African-American gay man. That�s pretty 
hard to say no to.�

So is the proper response to yesterday�s shooting an extended 
meditation on blackness, gayness, affirmative action, and black 
or gay rage? Should there now be a cultural hunt for symbols or 
expressions of that rage or a quest to batter history into 
submission until it tells only the stories we want to tell?

After all, police reportedly confiscated a �gay pride flag� from 
his home. Yet for the Left, yesterday�s brutal murders are all 
about guns. They present yet another opportunity to �shame� 
lawmakers into passing legislation that limits Americans� 
constitutional rights � legislation that would have done nothing 
to prevent Flanagan from killing his victims.

You want background checks? Flanagan reportedly passed a 
background check. You want to keep crazy people from owning 
guns? So far there�s no evidence that any entity, anywhere, 
adjudicated Flanagan as insane, and while portions of his 
manifesto indicate that he believed he heard from Jehovah, 
others demonstrate that he knew full well what he was doing. He 
was more than capable of discerning right from wrong.

Roof�s murders weren�t about guns or �whiteness.� Flanagan�s 
murders aren�t about guns or �blackness.� They�re about evil, 
and no demographic � no matter its history � is immune to evil. 
The alleged privilege of whiteness doesn�t make a man a killer. 
The alleged oppression of blackness doesn�t make a man a killer. 
Guns don�t make a man a killer. The man makes himself a killer. 
He is solely responsible for his actions.

The most effective cultural and political response to killings 
like Flanagan�s � and killings like Roof�s � is to assign 
responsibility and enact policies that reflect man�s individual 
fallen nature.

We decry mass incarceration � and we do need to think hard about 
whether so many Americans need to be in prison � but no one 
credible is arguing that we�ve engaged in mass incarceration of 
the innocent.

The Left decries increasingly �lax� gun laws as enabling attacks 
like Flanagan�s, yet those very same laws place the means of 
self-defense in the hands of individuals who are actually at the 
scene of the crime as it happens.

Indeed, the era of aggressive policing, tougher sentencing, 
increased prison populations, and less restrictive gun laws is 
also the era of dramatically reduced violent crime, including 
gun crime. Yes, black lives matter. Think of the tens of 
thousands of black men and women alive today because of the 
decreased crime rate.

Radically revising our approaches to policing, incarceration, 
and gun ownership because they haven�t eliminated crime entirely 
is the equivalent of getting rid of anti-lock brakes and air 
bags because they haven�t ended traffic fatalities.

In the Left�s upside-down fantasy, proven solutions become part 
of the problem: Somehow, the world is safer with fewer 
Confederate flags flying, more criminals on the streets, and 
fewer opportunities to defend ourselves against them.

But the problem isn�t policy or history or symbols. It�s people. 
As if we needed any reminder, yesterday�s events showed that 
anyone can be a vicious, murderous bigot, regardless of their 
race, their sexual orientation, or the flags they hang in their 
home.

� David French is an attorney and a staff writer at National 
Review.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423181/vester-lee-flanagan-
murders-race-sexual-orientation-guns-evil

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Illegal alien muslim Barack Hussein Obama seizes on this tragedy 
caused by one of his mentally ill homosexual, black racist 
supporters, to wave the flags for more gun control.
                     �