Philly mayor: Cop shooting 'in the name of Islam' had nothing to do with Islam

Let's start with the good news: If all ISIS sympathizers are such bad shots, we might not have as much reason for concern as we thought. How you fire 13 times into a car at point-blank range without killing your target is beyond me. But thank God, 33-year-old officer Jesse Hartnett is OK, and suspect Edward Archer's assault in the name of Islam drew blood but still ended up a spectacular failure. Oh by the way, stunner, he didn't obtain the gun legally:

During a press conference, Commissioner Ross said the gun used in the attack was a stolen police firearm. “It was stolen back in October of 2013. It was reported, and that is one of the things you regret the most when an officer’s gun is stolen, when it is used against one of your own.” Commissioner Ross says the suspect has given a full confession, saying he did it in the name of Islam. “According to him, police bend laws that are contrary to the teachings of the Quran.”

I didn't catch President Obama's immediate rush to the podium to condemn the shooting, did you? Oh, there wasn't one? Because it wasn't the sort of shooting that advances his gun control narrative, and, in fact, is problematic to his terrorism-has-nothing-to-do-with-Islam narrative?

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Well. Don't worry about that. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney explains to us rubes that this has nothing to do with Islam!

Mayor Kenney said, “In no way shape or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam has anything to do with what you’ve seen on the screen.” Mayor Kenney said of the shooting, “It is abhorrent. It is terrible and it does not represent the religion in any way, shape or form or any of its teachings.” He continued, “This is a criminal with a stolen gun who tried to kill one of our officers. It has nothing to do with being a Muslim or following the Islamic faith.”

It would appear Mr. Archer disagrees. He seemed quite convicted in the notion that it had a lot to do with being a Muslim and following the Islamic faith. For those concerned about non-violent Muslims being tarred by association with guys like this, you know what would make a big difference? If the non-violent Muslims sounded more bothered by the terrorism than by the association. A lot of people on the left stood and applauded this op-ed by Rana Elmir, titled Stop asking me to condemn terrorists just because I'm Muslim:

As an American Muslim, I am consistently and aggressively asked — by media figures, religious leaders, politicians and Internet trolls — to condemn terrorism to prove my patriotism. I emphatically refuse. Make no mistake: The terror imposed by those who sympathize with Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State militant group), al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, al-Shabab and other groups is just as foreign to me as the terror advanced by mostly white men at the alarming rate of one mass killing every two weeks in this country. Therefore, just as I have never been asked to condemn Dylann Storm Roof’s attack on parishioners of a historic black church in South Carolina, Robert Dear’s attack on a Planned Parenthood facility, the murder of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, or the slaughter of moviegoers in Colorado or Louisiana, I will not be bullied into condemning terror perpetrated by psychopaths who misrepresent and distort Islam for their deranged purposes.

The left loves this because they see the demand Elmir rejects as a form of the do-you-repudiate game, where you go up to someone and demand that they condemn something someone else did - something the person you're confronting probably had nothing to do with, but you make it clear that you intend to impose guilt by association unless they repudiate it. That's fair enough if you presume that any such repudiation would be insincere and simply in response to the demand. But my question is why the demand is even necessary. If people were going around committing mass murder and using a distorted understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as their rationale, no one would have to come up to me and demand I repudiate it. I'd be doing it first thing in the morning, and I'd be much more concerned with the evil being committed than I would with my own potential victimization via guilt by association. When it comes to terrorism committed by radical Islamists, the messages from the non-violent Muslim community (which is absolutely most Muslims) are rarely a straight condemnation of the violence. They are almost always joined by an equal condemnation of anyone who dares to connect Islam and terrorism, and the left-wing politicians who echo the message put almost all emphasis on the latter at the expense of the former. No, we don't think you're all terrorists. Not by a long shot. But we have a very large problem here and it's originating from within your community. Yet you seem more concerned about what you think we might say than you are about what these psychopaths might do. That makes it hard to really see you as an ally in the fight. I'm not going demand that you condemn terrorism, because any decent human being would do it without prompting. By the way, Officer Hartnett suffered serious injuries to his arm and he's going to require multiple surgeries to repair the damage. He's going to live but he faces a long recovery so please pray for him. Cop lives matter.