Peter Sage note: Thad Guyer is an attorney with a practice that specializes in protecting whistleblowers. His international practice gives him insights into the culture war, including two areas of "American exceptionalism", how Americans handle guns and how we consider immigration. This gives him an unusual perspective on Trump.
By Thad Guyer:
But for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, three months from now, only two great American debates-- gun control and Muslim (Syrian is the subset) immigration-- would have kept the San Bernardino Islamic shooters a little bit in the news, save for prosecution of any of their aiders and abettors. This couple is the perfect storm of gun control and Muslim immigration, with Syed Rizwan Farook having a gun background, and his wife Tashfeen Malik being a green card wife from Pakistan.
Our Muslim immigration versus gun control debate has a few ground rules from what I can tell. 1. American born Muslims don't count as "Muslim immigrants" just because their parents were Muslim immigrants. 2. Caucasian or Black American Islam converts don't count at all on the immigration issue, but may count just on the gun control issue. 3. Automatic weapons, guns or rifles, count on the gun control issue whether legally purchased or not, but neither revolvers nor pressure cookers will count. 4. Anyone who states that Islam is part of the problem is an actual or suspected Islamophobe (Trump and all Republican candidates), and anyone who won't say the words "Islamic Terrorism" is a feckless liberal (Obama, Hillary and all Democratic candidates).
Note: Hillary's positioning on the Muslim immigration debate is a little complicated because she was slow to admit Benghazi was “Islamic terrorism”, and her assistant Huma Mahmood Abedi is a USA born Muslim of Muslim immigrants who married a Jew, Anthony Weiner, in 2010. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huma_Abedin). But Trump saying he’d consider putting all Muslim Americans in a database makes the matchup a litter fairer.
The April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon Islamic bombing seems so long ago now, when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother used, not guns, but a pressure cooker bomb. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon_bombing). Lacking the gun issue, what keeps Boston in the news is the string of convictions this year of their various aiders and abettors.
The April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon Islamic bombing seems so long ago now, when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother used, not guns, but a pressure cooker bomb. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon_bombing). Lacking the gun issue, what keeps Boston in the news is the string of convictions this year of their various aiders and abettors.
(http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/05/us/boston-tsarnaev-friends-sentenced/).
Under the rules, being children of Muslim immigrants generally does not count as ammo on the Muslim immigration issue. Even May 3, 2015 seems too far in the past for a mainstream press to recollect that day in Garland, Texas when two Islamic shooters, dressed and armed just like the San Bernardinoians, Elton Simpson and Nadir Hamid Soofi, were killed by police before they could avenge Mohamed cartoons.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Culwell_Center_attack#Perpetrators).
These shooters count big time on gun control. But with Elton Simpson being a Muslim convert, he doesn't count on the immigration issue, nor does Nadir Soofi, USA born with his father from Pakistan and an American mother. Garland stays a little bit in the news still only because of the pending criminal case against an alleged accomplice providing the guns, Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem.
(http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/accused-terror-suspect-in-phoenix-court).
So he counts on guns, but even if guilty, Kareem doesn't count on immigration because he only converted to Islam in 2013 and gave up his US born name of Decarus Thomas. Similarly, the 2009 killing of 13 people by Islamist Nidal Malik Hasan doesn't count on immigration because he was USA born to Palestinian immigrants; and he doesn't count on guns because as an Army Major, guns were part of his job.
So, as fate often thrives on irony, the San Bernardinoians, Mr. Syed Rizwan Farook who obtained the guns, and who likes "target practice", and his freshly arrived Pakistani immigrant wife, Ms. Tashfeen Malik, are the ideal couple for America's debates on gun control and Muslim immigration. They will go down as the Bonnie and Clyde of these two American culture wars, and more clearly delineate the battlegrounds for Trump and Clinton.
So, as fate often thrives on irony, the San Bernardinoians, Mr. Syed Rizwan Farook who obtained the guns, and who likes "target practice", and his freshly arrived Pakistani immigrant wife, Ms. Tashfeen Malik, are the ideal couple for America's debates on gun control and Muslim immigration. They will go down as the Bonnie and Clyde of these two American culture wars, and more clearly delineate the battlegrounds for Trump and Clinton.
Peter Sage note: Thad Guyer is an attorney with a large international practice, primarily focused on defense and protection of whistleblowers, which are people who are inside an organization, typically an employee, who notices misbehavior and brings this misbehavior to the attention of management or regulators. Guyer has a website describing his practice:
www.tmguyer.com
