Huckabee: Sin And Evil Are ‘Root Cause Of Violence’ And Second Amendment The ‘Last Line Of Defense’

Mike Huckabee attacks President Barack Obama in an extraordinarily off-the-rails Fox News op-ed. 

Mike Huckabee unleashed what may well be one of his harshest attacks ever in print. The former Arkansas governor who is currently polling at about four percent nationwide used today’s visit by President Barack Obama to Roseburg, Oregon, the scene of last week’s shooting massacre, to berate the president and lecture gun control supporters.

“President Obama’s unwelcome visit to Roseburg, Oregon Friday makes one thing clear: he is clearly more interested in politicizing the nine dead victims at Umpqua Community College than reducing violence in America,” Huckabee wrote in his Fox News op-ed, noting some local anti-gun-control residents have voiced displeasure with Obama visiting. 

“If the president truly wanted to solve the issue, he wouldn’t call for new gun restrictions, he’d instead address the root cause of violence in America – sin and evil and the families broken and torn apart because of it.”

Let’s repeat that.

Mike Huckabee, who wants to be president of the United State of America, says that “the root cause of violence in America” is “sin and evil and the families broken and torn apart because of it.”

First, sin and evil are not the root cause of violence in America. There are many factors, like poverty, lack of opportunity, and an inability to access a good education, but sin and evil, constructs of the religious mind, are not the root cause of anything.

Second, Huckabee just blamed the victims.

He says the root cause of violence in America is (also) “the families broken and torn apart because of it.”

Huckabee concludes that the “Second Amendment is the last line of defense against evil and tyranny and it must be protected,” which would be laughable on its face if it weren’t such a dangerous mindset.

Huckabee goes on to attack the President by pointing to the high level of gun violence in Obama’s hometown of Chicago.

If that’s a fair argument, let’s look at Huckabee’s home state of Arkansas, where he served as governor from 1996-2007.

One recent study put Arkansas at number six on the list of the ten states with the most gun violence. It also put Arkansas as the state with the 10th highest violent crime rate, and 4th highest poverty rate.

Another ranked Arkansas as the ninth highest state for gun violence.

ALEC, the right wing lobbying group, ranks Arkansas 45th in education, giving it a generous D+.

The Children’s Defense Fund for last year placed Arkansas on all four of its lists of ten worst states for percent of poor children.

If Mike Huckabee is so dang angered by President Obama’s efforts to reduce gun violence, and thinks Chicago is “proof” Obama’s efforts have failed, isn’t the logical response for him to head back home to Arkansas and start Second Amendmenting “sin and evil”?

Let’s hope he doesn’t think so.

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license