Politicizing shootings doesn’t fix the problem

While appreciating President Obama’s earnestness and honesty about his desire to politicize the most recent mass shooting, KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz said the president is still missing the point.

“When you end up playing politics nothing actually gets done, because you end up pushing people into their ideological corners,” Rantz said.

Related: Molly Conley’s mom says everyone has a role in reducing gun violence

Chris Harper-Mercer shot and killed nine people, plus himself, and wounded seven on the Umpqua Community College campus in Roseburg, Oregon on Thursday. Addressing the public after the shooting, a visibly frustrated Obama said he believes that mass shootings are “something we should politicize,” because nothing will change until the politics and behavior of elected officials change. Obama said he would be talking about gun violence on a regular basis, since inaction is a political decision.

Rantz understands Obama’s idea &#8212 that politicizing the deaths might help to create a meaningful solution to gun violence &#8212 but that the vague notion of gun control isn’t an actual solution.

“He still hasn’t specified the gun control laws,” Rantz said. “I haven’t heard anything specific.”

In May, Oregon became the country’s eighth state to pass a near-universal background check for private gun sales. According to reports, the 14 guns Harper-Mercer had at the scene were legally purchased from a federal arms dealer. Thus, Obama’s pitch for universal gun laws seemingly would not have stopped this tragedy.

Rantz called these pleas to pass common sense gun laws a “lie” that give people false hope.

“Now, I do think what you can do is actually look at what happened, investigate what happened, create laws to stop loopholes in a system,” he said. “Create laws to address very specific and glaring issues, but that’s not what’s happening here, because it’s being politicized.”

Rantz said the aftermath of the Obama’s speeches can be seen immediately on social media: People who love the president reiterating their support for his causes, while those who are against him are quick to the defensive, saying they knew Obama would be coming after their guns. Politicizing these types of tragedies, Rantz said, never ends with someone saying, “hey, you made a really good point. I never saw things from that perspective.”

“You don’t actually hear people talking like that because you’re not actually trying to win the hearts and minds of the public,” he said. “You’re trying to win political battles. You’re trying to beat your opponent, you’re trying to make them look bad. And I think you saw a lot of that happening (Friday).”

Rantz called up a tweet from the Democratic party that took a Jeb Bush quote that “stuff happens” out of context, in order to strategically make Bush seem like a monster.

Rantz also pointed to issues that have been politicized by both sides – Planned Parenthood and climate change versus Benghazi and the IRS tax scrutiny of Tea Party organizations.

“All four of those topics, nothing has actually been done, has it?” he asked. “Nothing meaningful has been done because when you politicize, you’re not really looking for legislative wins. You’re not even looking at the facts. You are looking to manipulate your base into essentially hating the other side.”

Rantz said he’s still waiting for a common sense solution.

“I’m still waiting to hear the reasonable gun control policy,” he said. “I will get behind it. You give me a reasonable one that’s legal, I will happily get behind it. But we’re not going to come to any kind of game plan if you politicize.”