Curley: It doesn’t matter what Planned Parenthood shooter believes

Just because a mentally unstable person shoots and kills people for some stated purpose, does not mean their perspective needs to be taken seriously.

That’s the viewpoint of KIRO Radio’s John Curley following Friday’s shooting at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs that left three people dead and nine others wounded. The suspect accused of the shooting spree is Robert Lewis Dear, a man who allegedly made remarks about “baby parts” to investigators after his surrender, and had anti-abortion and anti-government views.

Related: Q&A on the history of attacks against Planned Parenthood

Curley takes issue with Planned Parenthood officials and others jumping to immediate conclusions that this man had anti-Planned Parenthood intentions and to use it to defend the organization. Co-host Tom Tangney said it’s also unfair to blame Planned Parenthood after three people were murdered in one of their clinics.

“I’m not blasting Planned Parenthood, I’m just making sure there’s a difference, Tom, because what we have is a crazy guy,” he said. “I don’t know anything about him other than he’s a crazy guy, goes in there and shoots a bunch of people, kills three people and hurts others who end up at the hospital. And then immediately we have the people from Planned Parenthood saying see, it’s fomenting anger on the Right, it’s crazy people on the Right, that are causing terrorists to come after us.”

Curley believes it shouldn’t matter what Dear claims his reasons were.

John Curley: He’s crazy, but apparently his reasons have credibility. That’s always the weird thing about it. Like that nut that goes into the church and shoots all of those black Christians and when they asked why, he said ‘Oh because I wanted to foment a race war.’ OK, well you know what, you’re not going to foment a race war by killing all these people who are in church. So, if you’re insane, mentally imbalanced, then all of the sudden we give credibility to the reason that you went in there?

Tom Tangney: Well I don’t know what you mean by credibility.

JC: All of a sudden we need to act upon the reason, create some legislation upon the reasoning of the insane person.

TT: Not necessarily talking about legislation at this point, but the idea is, what if he wasn’t crazy and he did it for a political reason? Would that give him any more validity? I don’t know.

JC: Then I think you could call him a terrorist at that point. Then you could say, ‘Well he’s trying to somehow coerce the behavior of people or government to create a change in law or government.’ Timothy McVeigh, same idea, right? I want to blow up the Oklahoma Federal Building because I want to change the way government is reacting to its people. That guy is a true, legitimate terrorist because he comes up with the bomb and the plan.

TT: And what some people are suggesting is this is an example of domestic terrorism because clearly he’s trying to make it scary to go and attend a Planned Parenthood service.

JC: Maybe. I guess we’d have to hear from the ravings of a lunatic.