November 8, 2002
Re: Rifle Used in Sniper Attacks May Shape Gun-Law Debate
Re: Rifle Used in Sniper Attacks May Shape Gun-Law Debate by Gary Fields and Nicholas Kulish, Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2002
Dear Editor:
The reporting on the Black Muslim serial-killing sniper spree underscores the untrustworthiness of mainstream "news" agenda. Consider the pattern in four news blackouts. Please note the perpetrators' protected status.
Consider Blackout #1, the Jesse Dirkhising hate crime. Seventh grader, Jesse, was kidnapped, bound, gagged, and repeatedly tortured and sodomized for two days until he was asphyxiated to death in 1999. There was an impenetrable news blackout on this ugly crime because the perpetrators were of a protected group, homosexuals, while the press was busy canonizing the cruising-while-AIDS-infected Matthew Shepard. Consider Blackout #2, the recent Wichita Massacre hate crime. Like rap lyrics become real life, five white Catholics, one a prospective seminarian, were chosen for their race, sexually abused, (the men included) then murdered. The women were raped and sodomized and the lone survivor's deposition reveals the racial motivations of the attackers.
Now consider today's Blackout #3. The sniper is black, Islamic, and was previously overlooked as a threat by the FBI. Some reports go so far as to cease using the snipers' name, Muhammed, substituting his dropped name, Williams (why not use Ali's dropped name Cassius Clay?). Sillier still, the media is trying to turn this racially and religiously motivated crime into a cause celebre for more gun prohibition. Recall that the reporting on the Stockton, CA schoolyard slaying, Blackout #4, never looked at the homosexual prostitute perpetrator, Patrick Purdy, for who he was and why he did it (his prostitution ring also inconveniently happened to have high-profile politicians for customers); instead reporting focused on "the gun." This Black Muslim hate crime promises to be turned into another sham about "the gun." After all, we certainly couldn't look at "who?" or "why?" if there might be adverse publicity for a protected racial group or a "peaceful" religion, could we?
Edgar A. Suter MD
Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research Inc.
Danville, CA
