In a radio show after three people were gunned down at a Planned Parenthood clinic, a Republican legislator from Colorado Springs, where the shooting occurred, equated the shooter with Planned Parenthood executives.
"Listen, the shooter was filled with the demonic spirit of murder," said State Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt told Colorado Springs radio station KLZ 560-AM four days after the shooting (at 6:20 below). "And yet, the Planned Parenthood executives who call for not just the murder but the profiting from selling aborted baby parts, as we've seen from their own lips on the videos of the Center for Medical Progress over the summer, they have that same demonic spirit of murder."
"Absolutely. Abolutely," responded KLZ morning-show host Steve Curtis, who's a former chair of the Colorado Republican Party.
In response to my question of whether he thinks there's any difference between the Planned Parenthood shooter and Planned Parenthood executives, Klingenschmitt said via email:
Klingenschmitt: "I've been consistent in my statements calling for an end to ALL of the violence, not just half of the violence as the pro-abortionists do. They remain inconsistent in their calls to end some violence, while they engage in violent behavior against children behind closed doors."
It's true that Klingenschmitt and other anti-choice leaders already responded to the tragedy by objecting to the abortions at Planned Parenthood as well as the murders committed by the terrorist.
For example, Personhood USA spokeswoman Jennifer Mason stated after the tragedy that her organization opposes all violence, including the shooting, but she criticized the media for "failing to report that innocent babies are killed in that very building every day that they are in business."
But Klingenschmitt went further Dec. 1 by equating Planned Parenthood officials directly with the terrorist, as if they were both "domestic terrorists," the term both Republicans and Democrats are using to describe guman at Planned Parenthood.
Klingenschmitt was one of three Republicans, along with Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) and U.S. Senate candidate Tim Neville, whom pro-choice activists accused last week of inciting clinic violence through their use of "extreme" rhetoric in the months leading up to the shooting at Planned Parenthood.