UPDATE: A Gofundme site has been created for the murdered deputy. You can find it here: https://www.gofundme.com/...

(Tip of the hat to acliff for posting about this in the comments.

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A long time deputy for Okaloosa County, Florida was shot and killed this morning in an incident outside a lawyer's office by a 33 year old man.



Okaloosa County Deputy Bill Myers, 64, was shot multiple times in the back of the head and in the back by 33-year-old Joel Dixson Smith, Sheriff Larry Ashley said. Smith had gone to his lawyer's office to be given a domestic violence injunction by Myers and turn over firearms, Ashley said. As they went to get the guns from Smith's car, Smith drew a concealed weapon and shot Myers multiple times, Ashley said.

Oddly enough, this story hasn't gotten much attention nationally. No one is blaming President Obama for the murder of this law enforcement officer, nor is anyone claiming it's all the fault of those radical activists at Black Lives Matter. Maybe that's because this is what the killer looked like before he was gunned down by authorities:

I suspect Deputy Myers death will not garner a lot of attention from Bill O'Reilly and other hatemongers on the right who get themselves all in a lather whenever a law enforcement officer is killed by someone who doesn't look like Joel Dixon Smith. Nor will they mention that Mr. Smith refused to turn in his guns as required by law, but chose to shoot down an 64 year old man just doing his job serving a domestic violence injunction on a man who clearly had no business owning large numbers of firearms. Because it doesn't fit their narrative that only black males like Michael Brown or Trayvonn Martin or Tamir Rice are dangerous to police. So, no, Fox won't be making a big deal, about the death of Bill Myers, deputy and grandfather who was was gunned down by a man with serious anger management issues, a man who was a repeat domestic violence offender, and yet was still able to obtain any gun he could afford.

Myers had retired in 2013 but started working part-time in January serving civil papers to earn extra money to take his granddaughter to Walt Disney World, the sheriff said. Dixon had been arrested in 2008 for domestic battery, Ashley said, but had no other details. Postal officials had no immediate comment on his employment.

It also exposes the truth they and their right wing brethren would prefer we ignore - that we are a nation awash in guns. In every other developed country, shootings of police officers, or anyone else for that matter, are rarer than active dilithium crystal cores for warp drives. In our country, on the other hand, every wannabe George Zimmerman or Jared Lee Loughner (the guy who shot Gabby Giffords and killed numerous others in Tuscon) or James Eagan Holmes, the Aurora mass murderer, can obtain one or more firearms with relative ease. And, of course, God forbid anyone complain about that, much less do something to make it more difficult for individuals prone to violence to obtain weapons of human destruction.

So, I doubt anyone on Fox News will spend much time being outraged at the murder of Deputy Bill Myers.

They should, though, just as all of us should. His life mattered to his granddaughter who now will have to find someone else to take her to Disney World. I know his life mattered to the people at Black Lives Matte. And it mattered to me.. Why? Because like any decent person, we care about all lives that are at risk because of the threat gun violence poses to everyone in our country, whether at the hands of over-militarized police officers or from our fellow citizens.

But does Bill Myers' life and tragic death at the hands of a violent gun owner matter to conservative pundits and politicians and Fox News "personalities?" Are they outraged that someone just shot and killed another cop?

I hear crickets so far.