We Need More School Shootings Says Anti-Gun Billionaire

‘Sarcastic’ Facebook posting removed after backlash

WND

LEO HOHMANN

It didn’t take long for some progressives to exploit the tragic shooting at a Washington State high school last Friday, as they used it in an attempt to gain support for a ballot initiative requiring expanded background checks on all gun transfers in the state.

Within hours of the Oct. 24 shooting that claimed the lives of two students at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, one of the billionaire backers of the Nov. 4 ballot initiative posted a link to the story on his Facebook page with the caption, “We need more school shootings!!! Vote yes on Initiative 591.”

The posting by Nick Hanauer, a Seattle venture capitalist from a Democrat family, was excused as “sarcasm,” according to gun-rights advocates in Washington. I-591 would prohibit background checks and has the support of the National Rifle Association. Hanauer is one of the top financial donors to the organization pushing I-594, a competing ballot measure that would require background checks on almost all gun transfers, even short-term loans between friends and family members.

The Facebook posting by Hanauer was removed sometime late Friday. Meanwhile, the news came Monday morning that a third Marysville student, 14-year-old Gia Soriano, had died overnight of her wounds at a hospital in Everett.

Hanauer’s comment was just the latest attempt by anti-gun forces to make political hay off of someone’s loss, said Dave Workman, a resident of North Bend, Washington, and a former NRA board member.

“It was on his Facebook page. It’s gone now. He pulled it down,” Workman said. “It’s obvious that the anti-gunners constantly look for things like this to exploit, to move their agenda forward and, of course, their agenda is stiffer gun control.”

Workman said if a pro-gun person had made such an insensitive comment in the wake of a school shooting, it would have been “front-page above the fold” in all of Washington’s major newspapers and the top story on every major TV network’s local affiliate.

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Reposted with permission