Noted evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins greeted the news of the mass shooting in Las Vegas by tweeting his contempt for Americans and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“Durn tootin’, great shootin’. Cool dude sertin’ he’s 2nd Mendment rahts. Hell yeah!” Dawkins tweeted, apparently attempting to mock a southern accent — perhaps in a reference to the country music festival at which the shooting took place.
He added: “Every country has its psychopaths. In US they have guns”.
Dawkins has been outspoken in his opposition to gun rights before. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012, he tweeted:
Dawkins’s tweet about the Las Vegas shooting came as police continued to update the death toll, and as the wounded fought for their lives in area hospitals.
Though he made his reputation as a proponent of rational thought against religion, Dawkins has been criticized lately for his “hysteria” over President Donald Trump’s election last year.
Dawkins had no immediate reply to the massive wave of social media criticism his tweet provoked.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.