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Politicians finally have enough material to begin exploiting the Boston marathon bombing. Before we knew who the suspects were, Politico's Dylan Byers complained that while we knew were "on the verge of a very important national conversation about something," no one knew what it was. Now we know! For Immigration, plus a little guns. Or the same things people have been talking about for weeks now.
Take Arkansas state Rep. Nate Bell, who in the bid for opportunistic tweet of the week wrote Friday morning, "I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A." He was not the only one who had this thought. So did Fox News' Kaie Pavlich, who wrote, "'Oh, the guy who bombed Boston is on the loose in my neighborhood? Super glad I don't have an AR-15 with 30 round mags' Said nobody, ever."
AR-15s, while quite useful in the hands of well-trained people, aren't very effectiveag against hidden IEDs left in a crowd. Or that law enforcement has been pretty clear about not wanting the help of wannabe vigilantes.
But with the the gun control debate pretty much dead in D.C., there are some who are eager to use the Boston bombing for something fresher, like immigration. Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley opened a Senate hearing Friday by saying, "We also appreciate the opportunity to talk about immigration, particularly in light of all that’s happening in Massachusetts right now and over the last week..." He said Boston shows we must make sure "those who would do us harm do not receive benefits under the immigration laws." Iowa Rep. Steve King said something similar earlier this week.