Rod Watson: Shooter pulled the trigger, but others share blame for poisonous racial climate

When the firearms self-defense instructor said it during the first class, I wasn’t really a believer. The revolver was heavy and not all that comfortable in a “tuckable” holster under a dress shirt.

Besides, I’d probably never really need it.

During the next class, he showed news clips of crime scenes where victims could have used a gun, calling a superstore parking lot “the most dangerous place in America.”

Still, I figured, it will never happen here.

Finally, after the third class, it sunk in that it made no sense to spend hundreds of dollars for a paper weight on the dresser where it could do absolutely no good.

But what difference would it have made in the Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue on Saturday, where an armed security guard did heroically shoot at the attacker but was foiled by body armor?

A sidearm can’t stop hate; a handgun cannot shoot racist rhetoric.

There is no bullet that will penetrate a demented ideology that makes every person of color an “other.”

There is no armed self-defense against a warped idea of Americanism that filters down from politicians and talk show hosts to bring latent hatred to the surface with deadly consequences.

Alleged murderer Payton Gendron did not pick a Tops in Amherst or Lancaster or Orchard Park to shoot 13, killing 10. A manifesto thought to be written by the Broome County 18-year-old indicates the Jefferson Avenue market was picked because the ZIP code has the highest percentage of Blacks of any neighborhood within reasonable driving distance of his home.

Just as Dylann Roof picked a Black church in Charleston, S.C., to murder nine parishioners in 2015, the manifesto makes clear the Buffalo shooter was just as intentional about who he blamed for America’s problems.

But in that, he is hardly alone. Though the manifesto for the most part avoids mentioning any politicians or talk show hosts by name, one cannot read it without being sickened by the thought of the poisonous racial climate being created in the name of power, politics and ratings.

When the 180-page screed rails against non-whites as “replacers” with “higher fertility rates,” it could be a transcript from practically any episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Fox News show a New York Times analysis recently concluded “may be the most racist show in the history of cable news.”

It’s also the highest-rated show, despite – or maybe because of – its constant warnings that Black and Brown people might soon overwhelm America and change its character. That’s not much different from the manifesto’s claim that Saturday’s attack was “to ensure a preservation of beauty, art and tradition.”

Similarly, the manifesto warns that whites “do not have the luxury of time” and must be “ready to act, and act soon” and “STOP RUNNING, START FIGHTING.” Rather than relying on the “delusion” of democracy, it says, whites must “prepare for war, prepare for violence and prepare for risk, loss and struggle, as it is the only path to victory.”

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Such incitements are frighteningly reminiscent of Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 call to overturn a democratic election and “fight like hell” or “you won't have a country anymore.”

If Gendron pulled the trigger, there are lot of unindicted co-conspirators who will quickly try to absolve themselves of any responsibility but can never wash Buffalo’s blood off their hands.

The accused gunman reportedly had been investigated by State Police and referred for a mental health evaluation after threats against a Broome County high school last year. That raises more questions about the mental health system’s ability to keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.

But the cold logic and meticulous preparation laid out in the manifesto reveals someone whose only real mental illness is racism.

The document deems non-white fertility an existential threat. It peddles supposed IQ differences between whites and Blacks. It cites white culture as “the norm of advanced societies today.”

Conveniently forgetting the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the author hates “a black man or woman choosing to invade our lands.” While railing against immigration, it brushes aside the fact that America “technically belongs to its native people” and instead claims that the country “now belongs to Whites because removing Whites from all of the United States is impossible.”

Just as after the mass shootings at Sandy Hook, Columbine, in the Aurora movie theater and several other venues, this one will spark more debates about gun control and mental illness.

But above all, Buffalo’s shooting is about America’s original sin.

The truly scary part – beyond the tragedy of 10 dead – is how many others have been cultivated to believe as this shooter does, who are out in the woods training for a race war. But we ignore them.

Or, because of laws valuing the freedom to speak, to assemble and to arm, we do worse than ignore these potential shooters. We ignore those who stoke their resentment for political power or profit.

I have every confidence the legal system will hold this shooter accountable. What is far less clear is whether this society has what it takes to deal – electorally and financially – with the politicians and media celebrities who create the petri dish in which racism like this can flourish.

We have a choice: We can either reverse course and hold those "leaders" accountable too. Or, to borrow a phrase, we won’t have a country anymore.