Right-On-Right Murder

     I can't say often enough that I do not condone political violence.  I don't have to like a person or agree with or approve of their opinions to know that they shouldn't be murdered.  And the truth is, I found most of Charlie Kirk's notions loathsome, especially his assertion that womenfolk like me should shut up, stop working for wages (and competing against, oh horrors, men for jobs) and concern ourselves with children, cooking and church.  Nevertheless, nobody should be killed for saying such specious nonsense.

     Republicans, starting with the President, were quick to condemn the political Left for the murder, even before a suspect was in custody.  Some even claimed this kind of violence was especially associated with the Left, conveniently forgetting the previous high-profile assault and murder of Minnesota state legislators -- Democrats -- for which a man long associated with conservative and anti-abortion efforts has been charged.  In reality, it appears the man who has confessed to shooting Charlie Kirk is a very-online gamer associated with the "Groyper" movement and a fan of farther-Right Nick Fuentes -- and perhaps a bit unmoored, mentally,.  It looks very much like he acted alone, and that's typical of such attacks: not only because a solo operator with murky mental processes is harder to predict, but because conspiracies are unworkable and get stopped early: if there are three or more people involved, the odds are high that at least one of them is an informant.

     Supported in part by the obscure online-ironic nature of the messages on the bullet casings, cryptic to most normies -- Republican figures are still blaming the killing on the Left, even on centrist Democrats who said mean things about Kirk (a man who never hesitated to say mean things about people and polices he disapproved of).  While the accused killer is as politically incoherent as most of his murderous ilk, it's clear he leaned far more Right than Left.

     But look here: these killers are outliers.  Most sociopolitical conflict in the U.S. plays out without this level of violence, despite acrimony.  Riots are newsworthy because they are rare.  This kind of targeted violence is even rarer, and most people, most politicians, no matter how foaming-at-the-mouth they might be, neither engage in nor promote physical violence.  (It is slightly newsworthy that South Carolina's Nancy Mace was calling for dire vengeance when early interpretations of the bullet casing scribblings suggested the shooter supported trans issues and abruptly switched to calling for prayers for him when it was revealed he was a cisgender white male.)

     Video games don't make people killers.  They get used as excuses.  Politics, likewise.  The converse is a greater risk.  When politicians and public figures start using these kinds of killings to justify wide-scale repression or worse, look out: throughout history and all around the globe, governments gone wrong are more dangerous to more people than any lone-wolf assassin ever was or could be.