In the aftermath of the deadly attacks on two Minnesota lawmakers Saturday, there were predictable efforts to blame Donald Trump’s political rhetoric for raising political tensions, and anti-gunners called for more action on gun control.
U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), apparently trying to exploit his newfound notoriety after being forcefully ejected from a presser featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last week, made headlines again by suggesting on a Sunday news program that Trump’s campaign rhetoric during his first campaign, according to Fox News, had raised political tensions.
Quoted by Fox, Padilla’s statement, made during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” was this: “I think it’s more than appropriate to step back and say, why are tensions so high? Not just in Los Angeles but throughout the country. And I can’t help but point to the beginning of not just the first Trump term, but the beginning of the campaign, the tone with which the president had launched his first campaign for president, served throughout his first term, and continues in this term.”
Not to be outdone, the far left Daily Beast is now referring to murder suspect Vance Luther Boelter as a “MAGA assassin.”
Meanwhile, gun prohibitionists in northern Minnesota are already calling for more gun control. According to Northern News Now, Joan Peterson, co-president of the Minnesota Chapter of Brady United Against Gun Violence, “says the time to have a conversation about gun control is now.”
Based on emerging details about the case, no gun control law could have likely prevented what now appears to have been a carefully planned series of attacks. As noted by the New York Post, investigators found the names and addresses of state and federal lawmakers in notebooks in the suspect’s car. Also recovered were “five firearms, including semi-automatic, assault-style rifles (and) a large quantity of ammunition,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis.
The establishment media is either toning down or ignoring any references to the suspect’s appointment by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to a workforce development advisory board in 2019. The Minnesota Star Tribune confirmed Boelter had also been appointed to the board in 2016 by former Gov. Mark Dayton, but said there is no credible information so far suggesting the killings of state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, and the wounding of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife early Saturday.
But while the political left is trying to blame Trump’s political rhetoric and attack Noem, new polling from Rasmussen shows they are on the wrong side of current events.
According to Rasmussen, the Daily Presidential tracking poll for Monday showed that 52 percent of likely U.S. voters approve of Trump’s job performance, including 35 percent who “strongly approve.” Forty-six percent disapprove of his performance, but there is another revealing survey result.
Forty-eight percent of likely voters say the country is headed in the right direction, up three points from a week before, and way up from one year ago—when Joe Biden was still president and Democrats held the Senate—when only 33 percent of survey respondents said the country was on the right track. At that time, a whopping 60 percent said the nation was way off course.
As for Noem, a separate Rasmussen survey reveals that voters have a “much higher opinion” of the Department of Homeland Security now than when Alejandro Mayorkas was running the agency as part of the Biden-Harris administration. According to Rasmussen, “49% of Likely U.S. Voters say DHS is doing a good or excellent job of securing the U.S. border and preventing illegal immigration under Secretary Noem.”
Rasmussen also said Monday, “Among those who rate DHS as doing an excellent job, 87% have a favorable impression of Noem.” The former South Dakota governor has been filmed participating in border actions against illegal immigrants.
The surveys were done over the past week to ten days, and they signal that Trump’s policies—which include reversing gun control policies of the former administration—have not negatively impacted how likely voters look at the current administration.
As reported elsewhere by AmmoLand, Boelter is now in custody in Minnesota, where he faces both federal and state charges in relation to the assassination of Rep. Hortman. Fox News is reporting that Boelter has been charged with two counts of stalking, two counts of murder and two counts of “firearm-related crimes,” which are federal charges. He has been charged with second-degree murder in state court in the deaths of the Hortmans. He also faces attempted murder charges.
A news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis details the allegations, and the federal complaint may be read here.
So far, there have been no reports linking any of the guns recovered by investigators with either political shooting in Minnesota, but that might come as the investigation continues.
Authorities have yet to reveal a motive for the killings, and published reports portray the suspect with alleged anti-abortion views, yet in his vehicle investigators found pamphlets about “No Kings,” a reference to far-left demonstrations over the weekend calling for Trump’s ouster and criticizing his immigration policies.
While anti-Trumpsters have blamed the president’s rhetoric for making the political environment toxic, there have been very few references to Gov. Walz’s remarks several days ago when he was quoted by CBS News declaring, “I’m getting called out on this because I called Donald Trump a wannabe dictator. It’s because he is. It’s because he is. ‘Oh, the governor’s being mean and the governor’s speaking out on that.’ Maybe it’s time for us to be a little meaner. Maybe it’s time for us to be a little more fierce.”
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
