Cartoon Network

If history has taught us anything it has taught us that drawing cartoons of prophets can be a very dangerous avocation. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility last Tuesday for a weekend attack at a center near Dallas, Texas, that was exhibiting cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad even  though it offered no evidence of a direct link to the attackers. An audio statement on the extremist group's Al Bayan radio station said that "two soldiers of the caliphate" carried out Sunday's attack and promised the group would deliver more attacks in the future. Because there is already some precedent.
Speaking of that precedent, the massacre at the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, was probably enough to give any thinking satirist pause before poking fun at Islam. At that time we were all about "Je suis Charlie," and that kind of solidarity was all about freedom of ideas as much as it was about freedom of religion and the press. The pen may indeed be mightier than the sword, but you've got to have a little bit of time to make that work. This is where terrorism tends to have an advantage. If you're a terrorist, you don't tend to announce your intent ahead of time. Instead, you shoot first and issue a statement of responsibility afterward. This is what tends to generate the terror.
That being said, it should be pointed out that blowing in the face of a pit bull, an especially vicious pit bull, is probably going to get your nose removed from your face. This is something akin to sponsoring a contest for cartoonists to come to a central location, present their funny pictures of the Prophet Muhammad, promoting it, and then being shocked when gunfire erupts. At this point, it should be pointed out that gunfire erupting in Texas shouldn't come as any kind of surprise, but that's a matter for another time. It should also be pointed out that this confrontation is some time in the making, since the woman who organized this fete, Pamela Geller has been at her anti-Muslim ax-grinding for years now. Note to Pamela: If you build it, they will come, if it has a cartoon of Muhammad in it, they will try to blow it up. 
Does it make the shootings in Texas any less tragic than those in Paris? No. There is no moral high ground here. The wounded and the dead just keep getting stacked up like cord wood in this jihad. It's been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. Now we are apparently going to try to see how mad we can make the Islamic State before they really do start setting up camp here in the United States. How about next time we have a contest to see who can be the most tolerant? Maybe not in Texas.