Here we go again! Another assassination attempt (Sept. 15) on presidential candidate Donald Trump at his golf course in Florida.
The last one – a near-fatal one – happened roughly 8 weeks ago in Butler County, Penn.
Both involved gunmen using AK-style assault rifles.
When will every American realize the answer to their political frustrations is not bullets but ballots?! All that assassinations do is cause local and national chaos, a vicious divisionism that can only result in more polarization, more mindless murderous violence. And people, including reckless politicians of all parties, must stop dog-whistle incitements to violence.
Anybody who lived through the 1960s can remember all too well the chaos and boiling anger the assassinations of that decade caused: mutual suspicions and fears, divisionism, violent counter-reactions and even fiery, bloody city riots. John F. Kennedy, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy were just some of the most prominent assassinations that tore apart much of this nation.
All too often, the killer or would-be killer’s motive is nothing more than to “make a name for himself,” the way those people do who desire to die from “suicide by cop” – that is, antagonizing law-enforcement to such a degree they goad law enforcement to “take them out” (shoot them dead).
People that desperate, as the “breaking news” all too often reminds us, unfortunately exist all through this nation, like time bombs ready to explode.
And it’s not just political assassination attempts. It’s school shooters, supermarket shooters, street shooters, park shooters here, there and everywhere.
Just a few weeks ago, four people (two wonderful young students, two beloved teachers) were shot dead in a high school in Georgia. It’s just one horror after another, and it’s got to stop. That shooter, too, was using an AK-style assault weapon, as was the young killer in the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre years ago.
Yes, mental-health interventions and more and easier access to mental-health care might be helpful. Friends, relatives and acquaintances reporting violent threats by someone they know or hear about could be a deterrent. And, most of all, there should be inculcated in every American, from childhood onward, that violence is not only NOT the answer to frustrations or problems, but that it is exactly the opposite – a vile cruel reaction that helps no one, including the misguided perpetrator. Violence diminishes us all, in one way or another.
Yet another way to help stop or decrease violence would be a nationwide (not states’ rights) spate of laws that would deal with gun safety: a total ban on AK-style assault weapons that can make mince-meat out of child victims and adults too; red-flag laws; universal gun background checks; and ironclad restrictions on where and how guns are purchased – to name just some vital efforts.
After the brutal murders in that Georgia high school, the state’s governor, Brian Kemp, was asked about gun-safety measures.
“Now is not the time,” he said.
We must ask and demand loudly an answer nationwide: Well, if now is not the time, WHEN?!
One more assassination attempt is one too many.
