Not something I’ve weighed in on…. Till now of course

I haven’t weighed in on this terrible shooting in Arizona and I’m not sure what I could add to the conversation. I can condemn the use of violence in response to political vitriol. But that’s about the extent of it I think. I think there have been enough talking heads and pundits saying enough to last us a while.

I tend to wonder how violent acts in our history have changed the political landscape. Let’s start with England’s Guy Fawkes. He of course was wildly unsuccessful in blowing up Parliament and assassinating the Protestant King in the hopes of establishing a Catholic English King, but his name is still synonymous with a desire for political change through rather excessive means.   He was just one of 13 actual conspirators, but he’s the one most remembered, likely because he jumped to his own death on the gallows. He didn’t wait for the noose. He launched himself from the platform and broke his neck when he hit the ground. Take that your highness!

I respect political idealism and the freedoms associated with it. We have every wonderful right to disagree with each other in this country. That’s one of the things that make us so awesome. It’s just too bad that sometimes people aren’t able to use their words successfully and end up going on a wild and irresponsible spree of some kind.  I don’t know what kind of problems the young shooter in Arizona had. It’s likely he was quite mentally ill and his motives were far more personal than politically motivated. Maybe his dog told him to do it.

An assassination started World War I, or else certainly lit the fuse. Gavrilo Princip, killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. This politically motivated assassination led to one the most terrible and life costing conflicts in human history. The results of WWI led to the start of WWII and European relations for years to come.

American’s only have to look as far back as JFK, RFK or even MLK, to get a sense of what an assassin’s bullet can do to the political landscape of a country. I often wonder how different the world might be today if both Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King Jr., had lived.

There’s no way to tell at this time how this particular loon’s bullet will affect the course of our country. But if history has really shown us anything, things always change. I simply hope reasonable and rational minds prevail; and those that need help dealing with any thoughts of assassination or talking politics through the barrel of a gun get the help they need.