A twenty-year-old white kid, a registered Republican (whatever that really means) climbs up on a roof with a high-powered rifle and attempts to kill the former President of the United States, Donald Trump. While Trump escapes serious injury an innocent bystander dies and others are injured. The young man is blasted to Kingdom Come by a sniper.
It is a singularly American phenomenon that politicians are targets for assassination. Four presidents have been killed by gunmen, along with the serious injury sustained by Ronald Reagan, and now Trump. Other political leaders have been shot along the way, some fatally.
I'm going out on a limb here, but could this be because there are too many guns in the United States and that this is a country where disaffected and unhinged people can get them so readily? People get shot at political rallies, in schools, at backyard parties, in supermarkets, in places of worship. Presumably Trump is protected by the Secret Service but a young sniper managed to evade the trained security snipers until after shots were fired. We can't thank God that the gunman was a poor shot -- an innocent person died.
There is no longer any safe place in America and over and over again it is white boys and men who are doing the killing, not racial minorities or immigrants or LGBTQ2S persons or women or any of the other groups deemed a threat by those on the political or Christian right. Often the parents of the young murderers are baffled by what went wrong.
Today, in churches across the country there will be fervent prayers for Trump, for the deceased victim, and those injured. In a high percentage of those churches there will be nothing prayed nor preached about the idol worship of guns. Chances are that thousands of attendees will be carrying their own weapons, ostensibly for the safety that simply doesn't exist because there are more guns that people in the US, the only nation on Earth where this is the se.
It's predictable that Trump is already being portrayed as heroic, a martyr, even though he has incited violence along the way. This will be amplified in the days ahead. What is the principle or the religious precept being upheld here? He isn't a martyr, but he is yet another victim.
3 comments:
It's a deadly combination: incredible ease of obtaining guns, especially automatic weapons, and a disturbingly high number of individuals with either mental illness or who have become radicalized to violent extremism. And yet, nothing ever gets done. If Sandy Hook and Uvalde didn't change things in the US, not sure anything will.
I agree, Roger. What a mess.
There was a posting on Facebook about the specific wound to Trump's right ear - a prophecy that he is anointed, according to some Old Testament practice, that blood is poured on the anointed one's right ear... all the right wing Christians are still claiming that Trump has been sent from God to save America... i nearly gagged !
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