Lightfoot not a hate group

So Shawn Vestal (June 26) is complaining about a murder being “under the radar.” First of all, it doesn’t fit the stereotype of a right-wing wacko murder: No AR-15, no headlines, militia types don’t use vehicles. Want proof? Look how fast the news dropped 2013’s Philadelphia Navy Yard shooting when it was discovered the man used a shotgun. Sandy Hook, yes. Navy Yard, no.

Next, Shawn talks about the Lightfoot Militia and uses that paragon of objectivity, the Southern Poverty Law Center. Did he know that a few years ago they listed every militia group in America as a hate group? Of course, they did put in the disclaimer, but who reads that?

Had Shawn attended the meetings like I invited him to, he would have had a hard time listing it as a hate group when the black U.S. Navy veteran entered. Or maybe when he talked to the Jewish people attending. I wonder how the SPLC would have listed the Weather Underground, the group that set hundreds of bombs in the United States in the 1970s? They were, after all, for black power.

Steven Stuart

Spokane