A Republican activist who has been a reliable donor to Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — despite a racist tweet that put him on the outs with DeSantis’ predecessor, Rick Scott — shot a woman and then himself in the parking lot of a Palm Beach County restaurant, according to sheriff’s deputies.
The activist, 72-year-old Steve Alembik, died. The woman, wounded in the back and arm, survived when she ran into the restaurant bleeding and was rushed to the hospital.
The shooting happened at a Burgerfi outlet in Delray Beach a week ago Monday, although Alembik’s identity wasn’t revealed until last Friday in the Boca Raton News. The wounded victim was believed to be his wife.
Over the past 20 years, Alembik, gave more than $200,000 in political contributions, mainly to Republicans, including thousands of dollars to both DeSantis and Donald Trump. The founder of a Boca Raton digital marketing company, the Democrat-turned-Republican earned notoriety in 2018 by referring to former President Barack Obama as a “f******* Muslim n*****” in a post on the social media platform X, then known as Twitter.
He also would have been described as a “responsible gun owner” 24 hours ago since the gun was likely legally purchased and he hadn’t lost control of his emotions and killed anyone with it yet.
It’s rare to see someone rightfully point out the fact that all bad guys with a gun were once good guys until they suddenly… You know… Weren’t.
And then magically, they don’t count, despite buying the same guns, from the same stores, with the same checks then carrying it around under the same laws and storing it with the same optional safety.
It’s a perfect setup. Responsible gun owners can never commit crimes. Maybe it’s time we all started calling the murderers committing crimes with legal guns “former responsible gun owner so and so”.
It’s like a mixture of survivor bias and a no true scot fallacy.