Flashback: Trump Was Silent When The NRA Cased A Real Mall To Show How To Carry Out The “Perfect” Terrorist Attack

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump recently suggested that “freedom of the press” should be limited because of the existence of magazines that show terrorists how to build bombs, but had nothing to say in July when the NRA released a video in which they cased an Oklahoma mall to demonstrate how to carry out a successful terrorist attack.

While discussing the weekend bombings in New Jersey and New York on Fox News, Trump made critical statements about “freedom of the press” and “freedom of expression,” claiming, “It’s called ‘freedom of the press,’ where you buy magazines and they tell you how to make these same bombs that I saw.” Trump added, “we should arrest the people that do that because they’re participating in crime”:

The Huffington Post called Trump’s remarks “chilling” because of Trump’s “casual dismissal of ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘freedom of speech,’ bedrocks of American democracy, as potentially disposable in fighting terrorism.” Fusion also criticized Trump’s remarks, noting that they should be examined in the context of Trump’s widely panned past comments about wanting to “open” up libel laws to make it easier to sue journalists.

Despite Trump’s recent comments connecting terrorism and “freedom of the press,” Trump was not as critical in July when the National Rifle Association, which has endorsed Trump for president, released a video where an NRA employee cased a real shopping mall in Oklahoma to show how to carry out the “perfect” mass shooting terrorist attack.

In the video, released as part of an online series, NRA News commentator Dom Raso warned of a hypothetical, forthcoming mass shooting at a shopping mall carried about by “a radical Islamic terrorist” who “is looking for gun-free zones in states and cities where politicians have reduced our Second Amendment freedoms.”

Although there is no evidence that mass shooters choose their targets based on whether or not guns can be legally carried at those locations, the NRA attempted to illustrate its point by sending a member of its video crew to record cell phone video footage showing how to case a shopping mall.

The NRA video blurred out some faces and store signs, but not others, making the mall identifiable as Penn Square Mall in Oklahoma City, OK, which is less than a mile from the offices of Ackerman McQueen, the NRA’s ad firm.

As footage of the mall and shoppers was shown in the NRA video, Raso explained how to maximize casualties in a mass shooting incident, describing a would-be shooter’s planning, “As he walks through nearby shopping malls, he’s looking at the exits. He wants them to be few and far between -- hard to find in a panic, and easy to block. He wants lots of open area, high ground, and places to channelize people.”