WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The shooting at a US Republican baseball practice in Virginia stems from the atmosphere of hatred created by the Democratic Party, State Senator from Virginia Richard Black told Sputnik.
"The incident was not driven by guns, the incident was driven by this tremendous atmosphere of hatred that is being generated by the Democratic Party," Black said. "It’s hatred towards Russia, it’s hatred towards the President, it’s hatred towards ordinary working class Americans."
Last week, 66-year-old James Hodgkinson opened fire on participants of a Republican baseball practice, injuring Congressman Steve Scalise and four other individuals.
"Kathy Griffin who is supposedly a comedian held up a very realistic severed head of president Trump, bloodied and she got a lot of backlash for it because it was so vile. Then there’s another one, Snoop Dogg who staged a portrayal of an assassination by shooting President Trump," he said. "There’ve been many of these things emanating from the Democratic Party which is really a very, very violent hate-filled group of people in large part. I think that is the problem."
The senator explained that when an atmosphere of hatred is created towards different countries, different people, there appear individuals that will follow through.
"They’re not crazy people. These are people who have their mental faculties but they are just so inspired to hatred that they go out and eventually someone gets killed," Black concluded.
Several lawmakers and analysts have suggested the shooting could be politically-motivated given the shooter’s leftist rants on social media, and called on all lawmakers support each other after the incident.
