Harlan Drake shot dead two people and was arrested before he could shoot a third intended target, according to Associated Press reports. One of the dead was James Pouillon, an anti-abortion protester known in town as "the sign guy" for his practice of holding up a sign with a picture of a foetus on it. Drake shot Pouillon when he was standing outside a school holding his sign.
Drake later attempted suicide in prison, and it appears that the three men he targeted were people he held grudges against for reasons as yet unknown from media reports I've seen. There have been suggestions, by columnists and bloggers, that his motive for shooting Pouillon was because he didn't like the anti-abortionist's protesting activities, but that's yet to be confirmed [warning that link contains some pretty full-on pro-life language].
The ex-expat has written eloquently of the time and place for activities such as Pouillon's. And I sure find it distasteful that Pouillon was holding his sign up opposite a school. Disagreeing is fine, yelling is fine, shooting is not.
4 comments:
If - IF - this person was killed because they are pro-life, that's just destroyed the credibility of the pro-choice movement. What it had was the fact they AREN'T raging crackpots like the guy that shot Tiller.
But even if it's proved the killing wasn't abortion movement related, the pro-lifers are still going to use it as evidence.
No win situation.
That's pretty much borne out by the fact that I really struggled to find any actual news links for this story, most of the google results were pro-life writers saying he was killed for his pro-life views.
Seems to me Drake must have been very troubled to basically draw up a hit list and then proceed to work through it. This is somewhat supported by his subsequent suicide attempt. I'm also not seeing any reporting of links between Drake and pro-choice groups, which was far from the case with Tiller's murder.
If - IF - this person was killed because they are pro-life, that's just destroyed the credibility of the pro-choice movement. What it had was the fact they AREN'T raging crackpots like the guy that shot Tiller.
I'd say there's still a large gap, even if it's true, between one crazy and a concerted campaign of bombing, death threats, assault, and murder. It's ghastly, but the scales are still very firmly tilted in one direction.
Ok...so shooting people is a bad thing but partial birth abortions are fine and dandy?
Both are murder, nothing more and nothing less.
Big Bruv.
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