The man named “the most powerful conservative in America” literally shot up today’s New York Times editorial calling for stronger gun control.
Erick Erickson is a hyperbolic, homophobic, hate-filled Fox News contributor who, through his extremist rantings and role as editor-in-chief of the far right wing site RedState, has managed to be named “arguably the most powerful conservative in America today.”
Of course, that label, bestowed upon him from a far-too-generous Atlantic writer, does, however, demonstrate just how extreme the GOP has become.Â
Erickson himself today offered the perfect example.
As 2015 quickly draws to a close, it’s become sadly clear that there have been more mass shootings in America than there have been days in the year. Wednesday the nation mourned as 14 people were shot to death by now what appears to be an act of terrorism in the name of ISIS/ISIL.
In response, the New York Daily News on Thursday and Friday ran provocative page one covers denouncing lawmakers’ lack of action on gun control and labeling the head of the NRA a terrorist.
And Saturday, for the first time in nearly a century, the New York Times published an editorial on its front page, “End the Gun Epidemic in America.”
The editorial calls for greater gun control, including “eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition,” namely, “slightly modified combat rifles” that are “designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.”
It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection.
In response, Erickson, a man who calls gays “terrorists” and has written that basically, the only difference between ISIS and LGBT activists is that LGBT activists don’t kill people, did this:
In his own editorial, Erickson of course misrepresents the Times‘ words.
“The United States suffered its worst terrorist attacks since September 11 and the New York Times’ response is that all law-abiding citizens need their guns taken away,” Erickson wrongly writes. “Screw them. The New York Times wants you to be sitting ducks for a bunch of arms jihadists who the New York Times thinks no doubt got that way because of the United States.”
Unless every “law-abiding citizen” owns a “slightly modified combat rifle,” Erickson is defaulting to his usual uncontrolled juvenile hyperbolic hysteria.
Perhaps worse, Erickson urges his followers to copy him.
“I hope everyone will join me in posting pictures of bulletholes in the New York Times editorial. Send them your response. Put them on Instagram and use the hashtag for my radio show and I may give you a shoutout. #EERS,” he suggests.
The good news is that it’s likely that for the first time in their lives for many of Erickson’s followers, they will have actually bought a copy of the New York Times.
I expect it’s too much to hope they actually read it before filling it with lead.
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