The college professor who demanded the “head” of NRA chieftain Wayne LaPierre and said members of the pro-gun group are child murderers and terrorist financiers is at it again.
This time, he wrote that the cold-blooded murder of a Trump supporter in Portland was morally acceptable, and favorably likened the murderer to antebellum terrorist John Brown.
The amateur moral theologian? Erik Loomis, an historian at the University of Rhode Island. The murderer he supports? Deceased Antifa-Black Lives Matter terrorist Michael Forest Reinoehl. The victim? Patriot Prayer member Aaron J. Danielson.
Reinoehl, Loomis falsely claimed, killed a fascist. And nothing, he continued, is wrong with that.
Encouraging Murder
The occasion of Loomis’ latest death wish was Reinoehl’s suicidal attack on police.
Cops killed the deranged terrorist when he fired on them with a semi-automatic rifle. They had cornered him a few days after he murdered Danielson. Reinoehl confessed to the murder in a conversation with a journalist who published the confession on Vice.com.
Unsurprisingly, Reinoehl, who falsely represented himself as an Army veteran, claimed self-defense, but a video analysis suggests Reinoehl and a squad of Antifa goons staged an elaborate hit.
But here’s Loomis, who speculated that police conspired to murder Reinoehl because the cops are fascists — just like Danielson. They were, presumably, exacting revenge.
“I am extremely anti-conspiracy theory,” Loomis wrote at the Lawyers, Guns, & Monday website:
But it’s not a conspiracy theory at this point in time to wonder if the cops simply murdered him. The police is shot through with fascists from stem to stern. They were openly working with the fascists in Portland, as they were in Kenosha which led to dead protestors.
Loomis cited another historian you’ve never heard of to back his theory.
“Whether you disagree with Michael Reinoehl’s tactics, he deserved to be arrested and tried in court, not killed by a motley of federal law enforcement,” tweeted Manisha Sinha. “This seems like a hit job, an extra judicial killing ordered by Trumpsters. When you get rid of the rule of law, you get fascism.”
Whether you disagree with Michael Reinoehl’s tactics, he deserved to be arrested and tried in court, not killed by a motley of federal law enforcement. This seems like a hit job, an extra judicial killing ordered by Trumpsters. When you get rid of the rule of law, you get fascism https://t.co/hAqstbGCxx
— Manisha Sinha (@ProfMSinha) September 4, 2020
Morally Justified
Loomis’ short piece didn’t impress all of his readers. “Erik, he shot and killed a guy,” one commenter wrote.
Replied Loomis: “He killed a fascist. I see nothing wrong with it, at least from a moral perspective. Tactically, that’s a different story. But you could say the same thing about John Brown.”
“What’s so great about assassinating a rando fascist?” another commenter wrote. “And in the absence of a sound affirmative justification, it should be easy to envision the drawbacks.”
Loomis fired again: “What’s so great about assassinating random slaveholders, said liberals to John Brown.”
The analogy is clear.
Loomis backs murdering so-called fascists, whether ordinary Americans who join pro-Trump protests to counter Antifa-BLM riots, or a “random” Trump supporter sitting in his living room.
Pro-Trump students in Loomis’ classes might wish to wear body armor or carry a firearm in case he spots a “random” fascist who needs “assassination.”
After all, “nothing [would be] wrong with it, at least from a moral perspective,” even if mistaken “tactically.”
NRA Members Are Child Killers, Terrorist Financiers
In 2012, Loomis aimed his rhetorical guns at former NRA head Wayne LaPierre after the awful shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.
“Looks like the National Rifle Association has murdered some more children,” he tweeted. “Can we define NRA membership dues as contributing to a terrorist organization?”
Looks like the National Rifle Association has murdered some more children.
— Erik Loomis (@ErikLoomis) December 14, 2012
Can we define NRA membership dues as contributing to a terrorist organization?
— Erik Loomis (@ErikLoomis) December 14, 2012
The remarks invited myriad replies, and so Loomis went on:
@rmccrory I was heartbroken in the first 20 mass murders. Now I want Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick.
— Erik Loomis (@ErikLoomis) December 15, 2012
Tuition at the university for your son or daughter to feel threatened by a professor and hear his daft conspiracy theories: between $28,000 and $37,000.
H/T: Campus Reform
Image: Thinkstock
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
