The New York Times took the unprecedented step of publishing a front-page editorial for the first time since 1920, attacking laws that allowed the legal purchase of high-powered assault weapons in the US as a “moral outrage and a national disgrace”.
“Motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms,” NYT said in the emotionally charged and scathing editorial. “America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing ...”
In a separate editorial, it also sought to warn Americans on the perils of anti-Muslim outbursts. “Wherever the investigation leads, Americans must guard against overreaction, and subdue the panicked reflex of distrust and hatred toward the Americans among us who are Muslims.
The Washington Post urged its readers not to abandon the spirit of tolerance in the aftermath of the attacks, and said: “The disturbing news that Tashfeen Malek, the woman who helped carry out the massacre in San Bernardino, California, had pledged fealty to [Daesh] intensifies suspicions that the carnage was inspired, perhaps even directed, by that terrorist group. That is ample cause, if any is needed, for the United States to redouble its resolve to destroy [Daesh, or the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] and other barbarously radical groups. It would be self-defeating if, in the course of carrying out that fight, Americans lost sight of one of this country’s most valuable tools in the war against terrorism: Its embrace of values based on diversity and tolerance, including for millions of loyal and fully assimilated American Muslims.”
The Los Angeles Times blasted the “US infatuation with guns” as bordering on “a society-wide suicidal impulse” and said in an editorial: “President Obama said after the Planned Parenthood attack that ‘this is not normal’. But sadly it is becoming altogether too normal in the United States.” Noting that such attacks have become so routine they have almost lost their ability to shock, the paper said: “Enough. This nation’s infatuation with guns — inflamed by the ludicrous stances of the NRA [National Rifle Association] and abetted by Congress’ fear of that powerful but irresponsible group — is suicidal. There are too many guns, too easily obtained.”
The USA Today, meanwhile, deconstructed the unusual circumstances that led to their editorial on the California shootings: “This editorial started out as an attempt to make some sense of the shooting of 12 people, three fatally, at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs ... But in America these days, you never have to wait very long for the next mass shooting, and sure enough, the tragedy in Colorado was eclipsed just five days later by the even more horrific one on Wednesday in San Bernardino.”
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