Kyle and Lanza
My article on Chris Kyle, “The American Sniper Was No Hero,” understandably upset many people, especially the penultimate sentence:
Excuse me, but I have trouble seeing an essential difference between what Kyle did in Iraq and what Adam Lanza did at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
I can see a case for omitting that sentence. The strongest argument, which is strategic not substantive, is that it might anger readers so much that they would forget everything else I said in the article. I grant that could be so, although I’m inclined to believe that people whose anger moved them to answer me in the crudest possible manner would have been just as angry at the mere words “the American sniper was no hero.” We’ll never know.
