By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Democrat U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock demanded action following Wednesday’s shooting at an Atlanta medical facility, not against the killer but against the “gun lobby.”
According to Newsweek, Warnock, who represents Georgia in the Senate, went to the Senate floor to rip “gun lobbyists who want to line their pockets even at the cost of our children.”
During his remarks, he said his own children were in lockdown because of the shooting.
The suspect, identified as Deion Patterson, 24, was apprehended following an hours-long manhunt. He is alleged to have shot five women, one of them fatally, at a facility called Northside Medical Midtown. WXIA news said he is facing four counts of aggravated assault “and is accused of murder.” The murder victim was identified as Amy St. Pierre, 39.
According to CNN, Patterson had gone to the facility “because he was dissatisfied with care he was getting from the Department of Veterans Affairs.” However, when doctors at Northside apparently would not give him an anti-anxiety drug called Ativan, the suspect became angry and pulled a handgun, opening fire. He then fled on foot, allegedly stole a pickup truck at a gas station, and fled to a neighboring county.
Warnock spoke for just over 12 minutes, and at no time did he seem to focus on punishment of the perpetrator. As reported by Newsweek, “He said opponents of gun-control legislation argue the hundreds of mass shootings per year are a ‘cost of freedom,’ adding that the ‘slow-moving tragedy’ throughout the country is actually the price of ‘blind obstinance’ by refusing to change course despite evidence, ‘demagoguery’ and greed.”
Remarks like Warnock’s are nothing new in the aftermath of a high-profile shooting incident. Such calls for action have followed a similar script, with exclamations that “thoughts and prayers are not enough.” The remark is invariably followed by a call for action, generically defined as “common sense gun reforms.”
