Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) has had the nerve to take a position on gun control as the remedy for the Orlando massacre, rather than ramp up hatred against Muslims, and for that, Bill O’Reilly announced today, “I just want to slap him, with all due respect.”

O’Reilly made the comment on Fox & Friends, the same show that was a willing helpmate to Donald Trump’s exploitation of the tragedy into a bigoted attack on President Obama, just a few days ago. And the fact is that O’Reilly is for some form of gun control, as he discussed with Stephen Colbert a few nights ago. However, Clyburn's recent comments indicate he may not be sufficiently anti-Islamic enough, apparently. And maybe a little too sensitive to people of color.

“This is not about ISIS, this is not any kind of foreign terror, this is about guns in America and whether or not we’re going to have some kind of moderation to this Second Amendment,” Clyburn, the third highest-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, said on MSNBC, describing the shooter as having “a lot of hate, and some of it was self-hate.”

[…]

His comments came a day after he made headlines for breaking protocol on the House floor by following a moment of silence for the Orlando victims by asking House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., when gun legislation would be considered. Ryan silenced him, which caused Clyburn’s Democratic colleagues to break out in shouts of “Where’s the bill?” and “No leadership!”

On Fox & Friends this morning, O’Reilly was asked why people are not “connecting the dots” between Orlando shooter Omar Mateen and ISIS, based on, as cohost Brian Kilmeade put it, “two trips to Saudi Arabia, a linkage to a suicide bomber in Syria.”

Mateen’s connections to ISIS are still murky but that has not stopped Fox from suggesting that the only patriotic response to the Orlando attack is to gin up more hatred for Muslims, say the magical words “Islamic terror” and accuse President Obama of being in cahoots with the bad guys.

Thus, for Clyburn to argue that guns should be the focus instead – well, that calls for corporal punishment, O’Reilly style. Besides the threat of violence, O’Reilly mocked Clyburn’s voice.

O’REILLY: Yeah. He [Clyburn] gets all, "It’s not about terrorism, it’s about gun control.' And I just want to slap him, with all due respect. What it is going to take? Do the ISIS people have to come to your backyard, alright? Do they have to put you in a cage? Because they will. So when you start to tell Americans lies, that there isn’t a terror threat, that it’s all about gun control, and only if we banned all guns we’d be safe from ISIS. When you start to lie at that level, and it’s acceptable lies, then we’re in trouble as a country. 

It’s pretty obvious Clyburn knows there’s a terrorism threat. Otherwise he wouldn’t have said, in that same MSNBC appearance, that nobody on the no-fly list should be able to buy guns. And never mind that the Charleston church massacre occurred in Clyburn’s own district last year. Maybe he sees a connection beyond the Muslims, eh?

Furthermore, Clyburn is no junior congressman but the top-ranking African American in Congress and the Assistant Democratic Leader in the House of Representatives. So O’Reilly’s attack was especially disrespectful.

Of course, none of the cohosts objected.

Can you imagine the 24/7 poutrage if someone on MSNBC expressed a desire to commit violence against any Republican, much less a high-ranking one? You don’t have to. Remember when David Letterman made a rather tasteless joke about Bristol Palin getting “knocked up?” Fox howled for days over the disrespect. And when President Obama made comments that were supportive of black protesters after George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin, Obama was accused on Fox of inciting violence – even though he had explicitly denounced it.

Watch it below, from the June 16 Fox & Friends.

(H/T Media Matters)