The specter of violence that hangs over America and may have triggered the shooting which left House Majority Whip Steve Scalise in critical condition can be hanged on the radical left, federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy told Newsmax TV on Wednesday.
And strong enforcement of the law is the only effective way of fighting it, McCarthy said to Newsmax's Steve Malzberg.
"I don't think it's any longer a principle of this country that used to be our proud boast that I may disagree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death your right to say it," McCarthy said.
"Now the people who have the specter of death hanging over them are the people who have the temerity to say things that the radical left disagrees with. And the reason that atmosphere exists is because the laws are not being enforced.
"I think you simply enforce the laws including when people commit vandalism and arson – you enforce the laws strongly."
See Steve Malzberg on Newsmax TV: Tune in — on FiOS 615, YouTube Livestream, Newsmax TV App from any smartphone, NewsmaxTV.com, Roku, Amazon Fire — More Systems Here
But it goes beyond law enforcement as well, according to McCarthy, who served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and prosecuted the so-called "Blind Shiek" who masterminded the first bombing of New York City's World Trade Center in 1993.
"It's a social cultural attitude. . . . The attitude that has to change is the one that's being bred on the campus and in the popular media, and that is that this stuff has to be condemned," he told Malzberg.
"We can't become a kind of a Sharia society where if you violate the norms, we declare jihad and you're a target because of what you say or what you think. If we're going to be America that can't be."
Wednesday's bloodbath occurred at a Republican charity softball practice in Alexandra, Virginia.
A rifle-wielding attacker opened fire on lawmakers, wounding Scalise of Louisiana and several others as congressmen and aides dove for cover. The assailant, prepared with "a lot of ammo," fought a gun battle with police before he was shot and later died.
McCarthy, a contributing editor of National Review, is the author of "The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America," published by Encounter Books.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.