Massacre at a gay club in Colorado Springs
What happened
Activists and progressives warned of a growing climate of hatred against the LGBTQ community after a gunman went on a killing spree at a gay nightclub in conservative Colorado Springs. The shooter, Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, immediately opened fire with an AR-15, killing five people and injuring at least 25 in less than a minute, before being tackled by a patron who is being hailed as a hero. Richard Fierro, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran who was at the club with his wife and daughter, jumped on the 300-pound gunman from behind and pinned him to the ground, beating the shooter in the head with his own pistol and calling on a passing drag performer to stomp him with a high heel. “I had to do something,” said Fierro, whose daughter’s boyfriend was among the casualties. “He was not going to kill my family.”
Club Q was hosting a drag show during the attack and had an all-ages drag brunch scheduled for the next day. Such shows have been criticized by conservative media and lawmakers, including
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who say the performances are intended to “groom” children. After Boebert condemned the “lawless violence” without mentioning that the victims were LGBTQ, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) singled her out, saying, “You have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most commonsense gun safety laws.” The shooter, who bought his guns legally, faces charges of murder and hate crimes.
What the columnists said
This attack was “at once shocking and entirely predictable,” said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. Drag shows have become the prime target of the right’s hateful rhetoric, with conservative politicians and talking heads “screaming that drag events are part of a monstrous plot to prey on children.” They can’t deny responsibility when “a sick man with a gun” takes them seriously.
Ever since the massacre at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando in 2016, said Robin Maril in the Los Angeles Times, it’s been getting worse, not better, for the LGBTQ community. In the intervening six years, “far-right leaders have led American politics down a fearful blame spiral fueled by homophobia, xenophobia, and racism.” They have relentlessly promoted the “dangerous” narrative that “queer and transgender people are threats to the health of the nation.” This year alone, 25 anti-LGBTQ bills have been enacted in state houses, including 17 anti-transgender laws. And more than 145 anti-transgender bills were introduced across 34 states.
Conservatives like Boebert would rather blame such attacks on mental illness, said Brian Broome in The Washington Post. This shooter was clearly troubled: He had reportedly changed his name as a teen because of online bullying, and last year he threatened his mother with a homemade bomb. (Charges were dropped.) But we have to ask “why so many supposedly mentally ill people seem to carry right-wing talking points along with their AR-15s.”