On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Briefing,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) responded to people pointing to transgender identity and anti-Trump sentiments of the shooter in Minneapolis by stating that “people will think of the conclusion that they want to get to, and then they’ll, like, reverse manufacture the facts that they want to hear to get to that end point.” And then stated that he knows there are too many guns.
Host Jen Psaki criticized the effort “to weaponize some of the details, even if we — we don’t know a lot at this point in time. And, obviously, the law enforcement in your city [has] been keeping people abreast, including details about the individual possibly being trans, about the individual possibly having negative things to say about Trump, about some things that have been on the weapons.”
Frey responded, “First off, anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize trans people has completely lost touch with a common humanity. Operate not off of hate for any community, operate off of love for our kids. Kids died today. This should be about protecting our children. This should be about loving our children. And, far too often, I feel like people will think of the conclusion that they want to get to, and then they’ll, like, reverse manufacture the facts that they want to hear to get to that end point. We should be standing up for our Catholic community, by the way, right now, because this was a Catholic church, we should be standing up for kids and churches and schools and all of that. Let’s love each other. The antidote to hate is not more hate, the antidote to hate and cowardice, which, clearly, this shooter had, is not more hate. Hurt people hurt people. The antidote is love. The antidote is standing up for our neighbor no matter who they are. That’s where we need to get to right now. And so, no, this whole effort to villainize a community, this is not about a community that did this. A community didn’t do this, a person did this, and that was a horrific act.”
Right after that, he said, “I’m not an expert on every statutory section of gun law throughout the country. What I do know is that we have too many of them. What I do know is that they can come into cities around our country by the truckload. What I do know is this particular individual had a whole ton of guns, and that, in most places, you can buy guns, virtually as many of them as you want, as much as you want, you can buy them, apparently, even if you’ve got some severe mental health disorders that might see you commit a horrific act like happened today.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
Read the full article here
