“A member of Britain’s Parliament [Jo Cox] was shot and stabbed to death Thursday in an attack that stunned the nation and brought to an immediate halt the country’s European Union referendum campaign just a week before the vote,” washingtonpost.com reports. “Police did not provide a motive for the killing. But British media organizations including the Guardian and Sky News quoted witnesses as saying that the assailant shouted ‘Britain First!’ during and after the attack — a slogan linked to anti-immigrant groups.”
Witnesses told British media that the assailant appeared to have been waiting for Cox outside a library in the town of Birstall where she had been meeting constituents. He targeted her with a gun that was either homemade or antique, as well as with a knife. He continued to stab and kick her even after she had fallen to the ground, bleeding.
Needless to say, the WaPo felt obliged to add this bit:
Gun attacks in Britain are rare, and members of Parliament do not customarily have security protection. British gun control restrictions are extremely tight, and firearms are considered difficult to obtain.
So tight, in fact, that a disarmed bystander was powerless to intervene:
Britain’s Press Association quoted witnesses in reporting that a man who works at a nearby dry cleaners initially tried to stop the assailant. The attacker, who was wearing a white baseball cap, then scuffled with Cox before shooting her at least twice and lunging at her with a knife.
“He was fighting with her and wrestling with her and then the gun went off twice and then she fell between two cars and I came and saw her bleeding on the floor,” the Press Association quoted a man named Hithem Ben Abdallah, who claimed to have witnessed the attack, as saying.
Our condolences to Ms. Cox’s friend, family and colleagues. Meanwhile, this incident will do nothing to help restore gun rights in The Land of Hope and Glory and everything to ensure that they remain moribund.
UPDATE: breibart.com reports that the reports that the killer was politically motivated were . . . politically motivated.
Thomas Mair, who has been named locally as the man arrested on suspicion of killing Labour MP Jo Cox was not politically minded, according to locals who knew him reported by the Daily Telegraph. A neighbour said he wasn’t a member of a political party and had never expressed interest in the EU referendum.