In case you haven’t already heard for some reason, seven people died yesterday in a shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, a suburb of Milwaukee. The horrific attack — which came just two weeks after a gun massacre in Aurora, Colorado — is Wisconsin’s fifth mass shooting since 2004.
Authorities identified Wade Michael Page, a 40-year-old U.S. Army veteran, as the alleged shooter in a press conference this morning. Oak Creek police say the incident is being treated as an act of domestic terrorism and the FBI is investigating the attack as a possible hate crime; the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups across America, reports that Page is “a frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band.”
From what I’ve been hearing from family and friends in Wisconsin, the state is reeling right now. My heart breaks for the victims and their families, and my thoughts are with the Sikh community and peace-loving, nonviolent, inclusive, ecumenically-minded people all across Wisconsin who are shocked, grieving, and trying to make sense of something so senseless.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
[...] though WE KNOW the Wisconsin Sikh temple mass shooting was an act of right-wing domestic terrorism (WE KNOW!), [...]
Pat Robertson is already blaming it on atheists, because they hate God. Once again he’s proving how ignorant and bigoted he is.