Kansas Rep: Shoot Undocumented From Helicopters Like Hogs
I’m not sure where to begin this, it’s so beyond incredible.
Republican Kansas state Rep. Virgil Peck suggested yesterday that undocumented immigrants be shot from a helicopter, like they do to feral hogs. What is it with Republicans shooting their mouths about shooting things from helicopters?
Peck made his remark at a hearing concerning feral hogs and a plan to rid the state of these pests by flying helicopters with sharpshooters to pick them off from above. According to the Dallas Morning News Peck chimed-in:
“Looks like to me, if shooting these immigrating feral hogs works, maybe we have found a [solution] to our illegal immigration problem.”
At first Peck didn’t withdraw his statement; he even dug himself a trench and sat in it. He thought the attention to what he said would blow over and refused to apologize becasue
his constituents are angry about illegal immigration and “I was just speaking like a southeast Kansas person.” He predicted that complaints about his comment would quickly fade: “I think it’s over.”
But it’s not over, it can’t be. US Congressman Charles Gonzalez (D-TX), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called Peck out for his stupid comments. According to the DMN Gonzaez was “seething,” as we all are.
(Gonzalez) said he’d read what Peck said “with utter dismay…. His comments were dehumanizing” and likely to hamper “a responsible debate about immigration” by inciting prejudice. “Speaking of human beings like animals and implying gun violence as an acceptable course of action crosses a line that his own party and his own peers should not tolerate,” he said.
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback called Peck’s comments “completely inappropriate.”
Peck has since apologized, but that’s hardly the point.
Am I allowed to speculate that there are many people who secretly applaud Peck’s comments? Can I say that Peck is a racist, bred in a racist society that sees persons other than those of their own kind as equal to animals that should be shot from afar? I could always apologize for saying that in the hope that it would soon be forgotten.
What the legislator in Kansas said is not funny, nor should it be blown-over. Here’s his email adderess, let him know what you think:
Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda
[Photo courtesy VirgilPeck.com]