The Oregon sheriff in the county where a gunman murdered nine people at a community college became the target of left-of-center media within hours of the attack for a pro-Second Amendment stance voiced years ago.
Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin has for years been a strong advocate of the Second Amendment and journalists began attacking him over his belief in the U.S. Constitution within hours of the murders.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes began before the release of the official body count.
Time magazine joined MSNBC’s Hayes and published a piece called “Read the Letter the Douglas County Sheriff Wrote About Gun Control Two Years Ago.” The magazine informed:
A little over two years before gun violence arrived at his doorstep in the form of Thursday’s mass shooting at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College, Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin had sent a pointed letter to Vice President Joe Biden denouncing proposed gun-control laws.
In the letter, sent soon after the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which 26 people (mostly children under the age of 10) were gunned down, Hanlin expressed a refusal to enforce antigun laws that he said were “unconstitutional.”
“Gun control is NOT the answer to preventing heinous crimes like school shootings,” he said.
The Time magazine piece regurgitated the work of the infamous Mother Jones, a publication once edited by Bowling for Columbine documentarian Michael Moore. Mother Jones published a piece headlined: “Oregon Sheriff Handling Massacre Fought the White House on Gun Control After Newtown.” The article contends:
As the sheriff in Douglas County, Oregon, John Hanlin was front and center following Thursday’s shooting at Umpqua Community College, which left 10 dead and 7 others wounded.
Two years ago, Hanlin was one of hundreds of sheriffs around the country to vow to stand against new gun control legislation. In a January 15, 2013, letter to Vice President Joe Biden, he wrote, “Gun control is NOT the answer to preventing heinous crimes like school shootings.”
Other outlets followed the far-left Mother Jones down the trail to single-out Sheriff Hanlin. CNN, NBC, International Business Times, Yahoo, and the Washington Post are all among the outlets reporting on the sheriff’s pro-Second Amendment views.
Crossing the line, even to the point of inaccuracy, Democratic Party mouthpiece ThinkProgress came right out and said what the other left-of-center news outlets implied. “The Sheriff Investigating the Oregon Shooting Believes Some Seriously Fringe Things About Guns,” maintains their headline They wrote:
Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin, who is overseeing much of the law enforcement response to Thursday’s tragic shooting at Umpqua Community College, believes some highly unusual things about gun rights and the Constitution. Two years ago, when Vice President Joe Biden was spearheading the Obama administration’s response to the Sandy Hook school shooting, Hanlin wrote Biden threatening open defiance of federal efforts to enforce gun laws. The letter is also riddled with language commonly used by the “Oath Keepers,” a right-wing veterans and law enforcement group that is closely associated with armed, anti-government militias.
In the face of coordinated attacks and focus from left-of-center publications, Sheriff Hanlin kept it classy. He told Breitbart News, “My focus right now is on getting this investigation completed and taking care of the victims and families of the victims.”
Follow Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby on Twitter: @brandondarby
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