Thread by @WestWingReport

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Back East, in a Pittsburgh synagogue—Tree of Life Congregation, it was called—eleven people lay dead, their crumpled bodies cool and stiff. Hours later they had been celebrating the most joyous of occasions, a bris—a ceremony to mark a child’s birth.

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It was a chilly morning, just 43 degrees, and a light rain was falling, when a man burst in, his finger on the trigger of an AR-15-style assault rifle.

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In case that wasn’t enough to polish off the parents, grandparents and others who had come to celebrate a new life, he also had at least three handguns. Shouting anti-Semitic slurs, he began firing.

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It was 9:53, and when the alleged assailant was done, in addition to the dead, six others—including four police officers (good guys with guns) and two others—had also been shot.

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Later, an FBI agent, Robert Jones, called it the “most horrific crime scene” he had ever seen in his 22 years with the bureau. The victims, he said, were “brutally murdered by a gunman targeting them simply because of their faith.”

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And here was the president of the United States, that very afternoon, with the nation stunned by yet another senseless massacre—in a house of God no less—cracking a joke about his hair. ##