Rush: WDBJ Shooter ‘Revved Up’ By the Media

Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh argued that the WDBJ Shooter was “revved up” by the media’s coverage of the Charleston church shooting on Thursday.

Rush said, “Now, this Vester Flanagan guy. He also said that the Charleston shooting is what got him. That was the final straw. So he went out and bought a gun a couple days later.  He bought the gun legally, by the way. And he went out, got the gun, and — now, who hyped the Charleston incident?  What was noteworthy about the Charleston shooting to you?  I’m gonna tell you what it was noteworthy to me about. You know what I couldn’t believe about that?  You know the one thing that stood out about the Charleston shooting to me?  I’ve never seen it before or since.  The unilateral, immediate forgiveness of the shooter by the families of those victims that were shot in that church.”

He then wondered, after arguing none of the family members of the victims of the Charleston shooting tried to turn the massacre into a “political circus,” “So who hyped it?  Who hyped it? The Drive-By Media hyped it.  They would not let it go.  The race hustlers hyped that incident, and we had to pull down the Confederate flag. We had to have this whole dog and pony show. The Confederate flag caused all this.  Meanwhile, the families of the victims couldn’t be found.  They were privately dealing with this, their grief, in their religious way.  But the Drive-By Media, the media itself? I mean, they whipped up the racist angle to the Charleston shooting to the point this guy admitted that what happened there is what set him off.  He might not have heard, because so little was made of it. The families of the victims immediately offering forgiveness, and even, to an extent, an understanding.”

Rush concluded saying of the shooter, “Clearly we have somebody here that was unbalanced, a sad, sad case situation.  And I dare say, I’m speculating, but reading between the lines, people that work with the guy knew it.  Nothing they could do about it.  Any attempt to help him by suggesting that he seek some kind of therapy or help for mental disease, can you imagine what he would have done with that? He’d have run off and talked about discrimination, and bias, and whatever.  So everybody’s hands were tied, again because of the stigma, and because of the victim stats, and because of the federal government’s power over these properties by virtue of their being regulated.  But he saw the media raising hell, and the Confederate flag being pulled down, and so he wants in on some of that action.  They got him all revved up and ready to go.”

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