James Devine—the Dem strategist who tweeted #HuntRepublicanCongressmen in the hours following the shooting of Republican Congressman Steve Scalise—was a guest on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show last night. Devine’s rambling and confused argument ultimately led Tucker to tell Devine that he is an “unbalanced person.”
But listen carefully to what Devine said, and you’ll detect what amounts to his justification of the Scalise shooting. He first quotes Sen. Rand Paul [whom Devine twice calls “Paul Rand”] to the effect that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to permit people to “shoot at a tyrannical government.”
Devine then argued that Republican policies have constituted “tyrannical government.” And so, repeatedly declared Devine, the shooting of Scalise constituted a “natural culmination.” Sounds much like a defense of the shooting, or at the least, as Carlson called it, rendering the shooting “understandable.”
JAMES DEVINE: One of the persons that was on that field, who spoke about what a terrible thing that was, was Senator Rand Paul –TUCKER CARLSON: How? What does that mean?DEVINE: — Senator Rand Paul retweeted something from Andrew Napolitano that said, the reason we have a Second Amendment is not so people can hunt deer, it’s so that they can shoot at a tyrannical government.TUCKER: So what’s your point? That he deserved it? Is that what you’re saying?DEVINE: No, absolutely not. But my point is that when you put up obstacles to people voting, when you secretly plot in the Senate to repeal health care that’s keeping 50,000 Americans alive, and you are otherwise erecting barriers to the democratic process, where we have elections where the people that get the most votes don’t win –TUCKER: That you should be shot?DEVINE: No! But that is tyrannical government. That’s the point.TUCKER: It’s understandable when you’re shot?DEVINE: It’s the natural culmination –TUCKER: Stop with the talking points. Just get to what you’re saying. Are saying. Are you saying that it’s understandable that someone might shoot you if you do that?DEVINE: It’s a natural combination of the argument that was made by Judge Napolitano and Senator Paul Rand. If Senator Paul Rand would like to sit down –TUCKER: Rand Paul.
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