“Though I am loath to call anyone a terrorist, you are a terrorist,” U.S. District Judge James Redden told Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon when he threw the book at her in 1995.
Shannon, now 62, was sentenced to prison for 11 years for in the non-fatal shooting of Wichita abortionist George in 1993 and another 20 years for a string of abortion clinic fire bombings. This week she was released from prison after nearly 25 years of incarceration, and the left was not pleased.
Googling the phrase “so-called terrorist” nets some 40,000 hits, but none of them refers to Shelley Shannon. From the media’s perspective a “so-called terrorist” is the kind seized in battle and sent to Guantanamo, there to be wailed over by millions of good-hearted people until released.
According to the Director of National Intelligence, at least 121 of the so-called terrorists released from Guantanamo Bay have re-engaged in terrorism. That has not slowed the drive to have more so-called terrorists released.
The left-wing terrorists who planted bombs in 1970s, in a few cases fatally, are now the lions of liberal society. Two became good pals with a former president.
Shelley Shannon gets no such sympathy. There cannot be many women in the federal prison system who have served longer for a non-lethal crime, but there are many people who still do not want to see Shannon free.
“The conditions of her probation must be the most stringent possible,” Katherine Spillar, executive director of the Feminist Majority Foundation, told the Kansas City Star. “This is a woman who inspired three murders. And she has never renounced murder as a legitimate strategy. Never.”
Spillar continued, “So to have her out and having ongoing communications with extremists from across the country who promote the use of violence, this is a dangerous situation waiting to explode again.”
This may all be true, but it is at least equally true of the “so-called terrorists” the U.S. government has incarcerated. Unlike these terrorists, many of whom served far less time, Shannon never tried to kill anyone, including Tiller. She shot him in his arms, the strategy then among the hard-core whose goal was to disable abortionists not to kill them.
Understandably, abortionists will take little comfort knowing that, especially given that Tiller was later murdered, but Shannon is not the one who killed him although she could have.
Activists on the left claim that Shannon has shown little remorse. That may or may not true, but the reality that prompted her to take action remains nearly as common and equally as immoral as it did 25 years ago.
One would hope that Shannon learned her lesson but to expect her to reject the pro-life cause is an expectation that will go unfulfilled. Many people have moved from the pro-choice camp to the pro-life one. Very close to no one moves in the other direction.
