Monday, July 11, 2016

Why isn't the NRA up in arms about the killing of Philando Castile?

Philando Castile was shot and killed by a police officer in a St. Paul, Minnesota suburb. Mr. Castile had a permit to carry a concealed weapon (a 2nd amendment right) and was, in fact carrying. When asked to show his driver's license, Mr. Castile informed the officer, Jeronimo Yanez, that he had a license to carry and was carrying and that he was reaching for his wallet. Officer Yanez shot and killed Mr. Castile. In an article in the Huffington post, a report from NBC affiliate KARE was exerpted as follows:

Thomas Kelly, the attorney representing Yanez, confirmed to the Star Tribune that his client had stopped Castile for the broken taillight ― and also because Yanez believed Castile looked like the suspect in an armed robbery that had occurred a couple days earlier. 
“All he had to have was reasonable suspicion to pull him over,” Kelly said.
He added that Yanez shot Castile “after he reacted to the actions of Mr. Castile.”
“This has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with the presence of a gun,” Kelly added. “Deadly force would not have been used if not for the presence of a gun.
[emphasis mine]

Not that I believe for a second that Mr. Castile would have been shot in the exact same circumstances save that he were white, but taken at face value, why isn't the NRA all over this? They claim to be so protective of all Americans' right to bear arms. Here was a US citizen, legally permitted to carry a gun and he was, by the murderer's own lawyer's admission, killed for exercising that right. Where is their outrage? They're quick enough to cry "tyranny" at the merest whiff of regulation. But execution for packing heat is OK? Does the NRA, perhaps, only care about the 2nd amendment rights of white Americans? Only people not in Minnesota? Only people driving without 4-year old children in the back seat?