To the editor:
When Muslim attackers in Boston, Paris, San Bernardino and Brussels shot or blew people up, there were immediate calls for, among other things, stopping all Muslim immigration to the U.S., surveilling mosques and patrolling Muslim neighborhoods. But when a white man in Norway killed 77 people (most of them teenagers), there was talk of only a deranged person. When a blond-haired, blue-eyed former soldier named Timothy McVeigh blew up an entire federal building, killing 168 people, nobody called for extra patrols of Christian neighborhoods and churches. ("Ignore Cruz and Trump—scapegoating Muslims is an un-American response to the Brussels attacks," editorial, March 22)
When white Christian Americans shoot innocent people in movie theaters, shopping malls, schools, churches or healthcare clinics, nobody calls for special scrutiny of their churches or neighborhoods. Have we noticed how the National Rifle Assn. promptly calls for protecting gun rights after mass killings perpetrated by white people but remains quiet after killings by Muslims, evidently because doing so would imply Muslims deserve unfettered access to firearms too?
Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and all the other Republican also-rans: What's your answer to this?
Bruce Barnbaum, Granite Falls, Wash.
Note from KBJ: The letter writer fails to notice a relevant difference, namely, that the Muslims in question acted out of religious conviction, while the others, though possibly religious, did not. Did Timothy McVeigh or the Norwegian mass murderer or Adam Lanza or any of the other "white Christian Americans" yell "Glory to God" prior to killing?
