Calls For Violence Must Cease

by

John J. Dunphy

(Originally published in The Telegraph of Alton, IL)

Congressman Jeff Duncan, a South Carolina Republican, had just left that Washington baseball field when he encountered a man in the parking lot. According to the New York Times, the man asked Duncan whether the “the team practicing was a Democrat or a Republican team.” When Duncan told him the team was Republican, the stranger thanked him and moved on.

The stranger was James Thomas Hodgkinson of Belleville. I was able to view Hodgkinson’s Facebook Timeline before it was taken down. Hodgkinson’s posts left no doubt regarding his politics. His profile photo depicted Bernie Sanders dressed as Uncle Sam.

Hodgkinson’s final post, dated the morning of the shooting, was a meme decrying the influence wielded by the wealthy in getting legislation they favor passed by Congress. It was disconcerting to discover that Hodgkinson and I shared two Facebook friends.

Hodgkinson hated Republicans. He was deliberately hunting Republican congressmen as though they were game roaming a wildlife sanctuary.

Every American must condemn this atrocity. Hodgkinson’s killing spree should fill all of us with horror and revulsion. To murder those we deem our political opponents is madness. Our differences must always be settled in courtrooms and through the electoral process. Violence is never an option.

Every public figure must take care never to say or write anything that could be construed as an endorsement of violence. Politicians in particular must guard their speech.

For instance, while campaigning for the presidency on Aug. 9, 2016, Donald Trump stated in North Carolina, “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

In his article “Did Donald Trump Just Suggest Hillary Should Be Assassinated?,” George Zornick noted that some politicians have openly endorsed taking up arms against government officials. Ben Carson stated on Fox News last year, “The Constitution is not about deer hunting. It’s about people being able to defend themselves from an overly aggressive government or an external invasion.”

While campaigning for the U.S. senate seat she now holds, Iowa’s Joni Ernst told an NRA convention that she has a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol to defend herself from “the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.” While running for the U.S. senate in 2010, Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle said, “If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies…I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

Politicians aren’t the only ones who need to bite their tongues. In an article titled “The right to shoot tyrants, not deer” for The Washington Times, Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano wrote that the Second Amendment “protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, with the same instruments they would use upon us.”

Public calls to “shoot tyrants” can be interpreted by mentally-unstable extremists on the Left or Right as an open invitation to assassinate politicians they dislike. This hateful rhetoric must stop now.

Ted Nugent once called Hillary Clinton “a worthless b***h” and President Obama “a subhuman mongrel.” Nugent even bragged during a concert about telling Obama to “suck on my machine gun.”

The Washington shooting goaded Nugent into turning over a new leaf, however. “We have got to be more civil to each other,” the aging rocker stated. “The whole world is watching America…and we have got to be more respectful to the other side.”

If Ted Nugent can attain this level of personal growth, just think what the rest of us can achieve.

John J. Dunphy is a writer and owns The Second Reading Book Shop in Alton. His latest book, Unsung Heroes of the Dachau Trials, includes interviews with veterans of the U.S. Army 7708 War Crimes Group, who apprehended and prosecuted Nazi war criminals after World War II.