Well, that didn't take long. It took the Washington Post just four days into the new year to exploit a murder to bewail "easy access to firearms."
In "Taking off the safety," the Post editorial board today admitted that while "[t]here is no way to know whether tougher gun restrictions would have prevented" Benjamin Colton Barnes from obtaining the gun with which he murdered U.S. National Park Ranger Margaret Anderson during a routine traffic stop on New Year's Day, that "it is beyond dispute that easy access to firearms can quickly turn a simple argument or difficult situation into a deadly confrontation."
That's just a more genteel way for the liberal broadsheet to express its cartoonish view of gun-owners as ill-tempered hotheads who cannot resolve verbal arguments without force of arms.
"It is unclear when and how Mr. Barnes obtained the weapons, but it probably was not difficult to do so. Washington [State] has among the most lax gun laws in the country," the Post complained.
So, without having all the facts at their disposal, and with the grief of Ms. Anderson's family and friends still raw, the Post decided to capitalize on a despicable crime for political purposes.
Shameful.
