Fox News anchor Shep Smith began his Monday show with an impassioned plea about gun violence, following the weekend’s two mass shootings.
“Yet again in America,” Smith began. “Uniquely American, this happens with regularity in large numbers as a pattern just here. Nowhere else. Granted, mass shootings like the ones in El Paso and in Dayton represent only a small fraction of our nation’s gun violence. But attacks like these that are more traumatizing perhaps because after the fact we can all put ourselves there, we can picture ourselves at a crowded Walmart on tax-free day, scooping up school supplies as kids run about the crowded aisles. We can relate to being at a bar late on a summer Saturday, having a conversation and a laugh with some friends.”
“Now we know what it looks like and sounds like when the regular stops along our journeys in an instant deliver a turning point in our lives. Or end them yet again in America,” he continued. “A young man complained online about what he called a ‘Hispanic invasion of Texas.’ Familiar language. Cops say he drove hundreds of miles from home to that Walmart along the Mexico border to a store known to attract Mexican families looking for products that they can’t get cross the line. He was particularly busy on the morning he chose. The school shopping and all, the preparing for kids futures. Manifesto, invasion.”
A shooter in El Paso, Texas, opened fire at a Walmart and killed 22 people Saturday; hours later, another gunman killed nine and injured 27 in Dayton, Ohio.
In a press conference Monday morning, President Trump condemned white supremacy and blamed “grisly video games.”
