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Notes -
As a Mormon, I have access to the Mormon rumor-news network via my mother, which can confirm that the Robinsons are Mormon - it’s been a bit so can’t remember specifics but the guys who talked him down from suicide and into turning him in? His home ward bishop (volunteer pastor-ish), and due to worries about being treated roughly or poorly if he just confessed to random cops, I believe it was a former young men’s leader who was a part time sheriff or something along those lines that used his connections to make him turning himself in discreet.
Regarding anti-Mormon sentiment (violence is rare), I will say that despite us being quite long-suffering, we still might be at least the third most badmouthed religion in America after maybe Jews and Muslims - yet receiving the least popular protection. Just this very week, BYU played Colorado and sure enough the student section had some “Fuck the Mormons” chants. Can you imagine the media shitstorm if people chanted that against Jews, Muslims, or heck even Baptists? But nope, it’s the Mormons, no one cares. It’s a double standard. Nothing new for us of course. The leader of the church who passed away also this last week at 101 (a pioneering heart surgeon on the bleeding edge of open heart surgery in the 50s and 60s, on the team that developed the heart lung machine, who brought open heart surgery to Utah as only the third state with such abilities, and more) spent a lot of time talking about being peacemakers, especially in private life, an approach diametrically opposed to that of many other right wing religious ecosystems and also the growing chorus of advocates for political vengeance (though admittedly general politics does not always dovetail with private politics). At any rate, it’s heartbreaking that the people first shot were literally people going to assist someone they almost certainly assumed had crashed their truck in an accident, and that said attack put a child as young as 6 iirc in the hospital.
If anything can be said about cultural and political significance from this shooting and its aftermath, it’s that the right is not immune to the fact that all victims are not created equal. While many right wing commentators will loudly point out that leftists tend to be bothered more by certain idpol crimes than others, lo and behold rightists are also bothered more by certain idpol crimes than others. Yes the Kirk shooting had more explicitly political implications but there is an unmistakable relative silence here. As just one example, I looked up the first MAGA type Senator that came to mind: Josh Hawley. Not even a tweet about it. Yet yesterday, we do get another tweet about Kirk, and not even a banal one: “Charlie Kirk would debate anybody and do it cheerfully. That’s what we do as Americans. Meanwhile, Democrats’ insane rhetoric is causing deranged people to commit deranged crimes. It needs to end”. The Bible thumping Christian Senator from, okay yes, Missouri, doesn’t care. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville posted single tweets without using the C word of course. Ted Cruz? Not a peep - but four tweets today about murders in DC!
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