If you heard about the two gunmen who attacked the “art exhibit” in Texas, you should know that the exhibit, which featured drawings of Muhammed, was essentially a big “Fuck You” to Muslims, set up by an organization run by a woman named Pamela Geller, a rabid Islam-hating right-wing nut job.

Naturally, the men who came to open fire were horrible people and it is very good that they were stopped without anyone else getting killed.

However, you must not be fooled into thinking that the Texas exhibit was about free speech. It most certainly was not.

It would be kind of like rabid liberals setting up a “Let’s Burn Aborted Fetuses Whilst Urinating on Bibles and American Flags” exhibition next door to an NRA convention. On purpose. No one would condone what actions the less stable gun nuts might take, but everyone would pretty much take note that the people doing the “exhibit” were guilty of attempting to incite violence about as much as you possibly could.

And that’s essentially what we had in Texas: Geller was trying to make something like this happen—or, if not, was almost certainly hoping for it. She may be an extremist scumbag, but she’s not stupid: she knew exactly how Muslims would react to such a thing. It is not very much of a stretch to imagine that she is at this moment quite gleefully basking in the limelight, having successfully goaded people into violent action which she can now take to the bank. And she is getting tons of attention—and almost none of the condemnation she so richly deserves.

In short, the gunmen were not the greater villains in this story. Geller, in my opinion, should be arrested for inciting violence. She was lucky she didn’t get more people killed. Or perhaps unlucky—it is quite possible, that in Cliven Bundy style, she was hoping for some innocent victims. The optics would have been so much better for her.