After a shooter opened fire in a Louisiana movie theater Thursday night, killing two and taking his own life, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) arrived at the scene and called for prayers after the “senseless act of violence.”
“This should never happen anywhere, but you certainly never imagine, you never imagine it would happen in Louisiana, never imagine it would happen in Lafayette,” the governor and presidential candidate said at a news conference late Thursday night.
Since he spoke, a clearer picture of the shooter, who held a number of right-wing beliefs and acted as a “lone wolf,” has emerged. But Jindal has yet to speak out about the individual and the threat of the radicalized right.
When mass shootings fit into Jindal’s view of “radical Islamic terrorists” posing the gravest threat to our country, he is quick to condemn the violence as acts of terrorism. But when the incidents are results of lax gun control laws and radical right-wing shooters — which more frequently lead to terrorism in the U.S. — he simply calls the situation tragic and is quick to move on.
After a shooter killed nine people in Charleston, South Carolina last month, Jindal called President Barack Obama’s calls for stricter gun control “completely shameful,” and like he did Thursday, offered only prayers. But when a naturalized U.S. citizen from Kuwait opened fire at two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee earlier this month, Jindal released a statement saying the incident “certainly looks like an act of terrorism” and “underscores the grave reality of the threat posed to us by radical Islamic terrorism every single day.” He went on to say, “the truth is that radical Islam is at war with us, and we must start by being honest about that.”
To the Louisiana governor and many Republican lawmakers, when white men open fire in public places it is “tragic” and “awful,” but when the shooter has a connection to “Islamic extremism,” the act becomes terrorism.
Jindal also refuses to discuss policies that lead people to open fire and commit mass executions across the country — and in Louisiana, many of those policies were his creation.
The governor, who is rated an A+ by the National Rifle Association, has opposed every sensible piece of gun control legislation in Louisiana and has signed a series of bills making it easier for people to have and carry firearms in public. Last year, he signed two bills to expand gun rights for state residents, including one to allow people with concealed handgun permits to carry their weapons into restaurants that serve alcohol — previously, state law did not allow people to carry guns into any establishments where they can drink alcohol. The other bill expanded Louisiana’s “stand your ground” law.
The year before, he signed another series of bills expanding rights for gun owners including one to enforce penalties for the intentional publication of the personal information of people with concealed handgun permits.
At the NRA’s annual meeting this year, Jindal compared the fight for gun rights to efforts in his state and others for so-called religious freedom measures. “If these large forces can conspire to crush the First Amendment, it won’t be long before they come after the Second Amendment,” Jindal said.
Louisiana has some of the laxest gun control laws in the country, and as a result, the worst rate of gun violence.