THE NEWS SAYS

If safety from politically motivated violence is truly a priority, we must reckon with its causes.

Aviolent man full of political hatred and armed with a powerful gun opened fire on a congressional baseball practice in Virginia, specifically targeting Republicans. In the wake of the horrifying assault, which left Rep. Steve Scalise critically wounded and three others hurt, President Trump correctly and gracefully urged unity.

Clarity is as important. If we as a nation are to have any hope of preventing similar madness in the future, we must learn every relevant detail about what motivated James Hodginkson and the means by which he managed to obtain the deadly weapon, then ambush public servants who were playing ball.

Some of this we already know. A Bernie Sanders partisan who in March proclaimed on Facebook, “it’s time to destroy Trump & Co.,” Hodginkson was clearly driven by a blinding brand of animus.

But experience and an honest understanding of human nature teaches there are often multiple drivers of violence, and therefore multiple ways to prevent it. While the shooter alone is legally responsible for his crime, laws, culture and other forces influence behavior.

America’s easy availability of guns, particularly guns like the one Hodginkson wielded, matters. While an angry and deranged or merely determined individual can do great harm with a car or a knife, assault rifles — designed to wound and maim with cold efficiency — make the job easier.

The long-peddled National Rifle Association theory that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun falls apart when victims are playing baseball, and should in no sane world be armed.

It was pure luck, only because he has a leadership post, that Scalise had armed police with him. Those cops felled Hodginkson. Just a handful of the 535 members of Congress have police escorts.

We repeat, for the umpteenth time: Firearms should be tougher to obtain. All who buy them, even in private sales, should be subject to a stringent background check. And there should be no place at all for high-powered weapons of war.

Such reforms will not thwart every crime, but they will stop some, and begin to change what is currently a trigger-happy culture.

Hodginkson’s mental state and history of violence — he had been arrested for assault — matter, too. Men who are dangerously unstable in the first place are likelier to snap. That was true of the would-be assassin of Rep. Gabby Giffords in 2011, and of so many others.

Finally, yes, the angry, sometimes violent rhetoric that’s loose in the culture also matters, and must not be wishfully ignored.

We speak here not of the staging of a Trumpthemed “Julius Caesar,” a Shakespeare play that explicitly condemns assassination. Nor should anyone be shy about engaging in passionate argument or protest. That is essential in a democracy.

But words and imagery so vicious or dehumanizing they effectively encourage hurting or killing those with whom we disagree on public policy have no place even in a raucous republic.

Regrettably, people on both sides of the Democrat-Republican divide are constantly dropping gratuitously ad hominem logs on the fire; in his campaign, Trump himself did so repeatedly, at a level without precedent by a candidate.

If safety from politically motivated violence is truly a priority, we must reckon honestly with its many causes.