Violence should not be our language

It only takes an hour before an attempted assassination of a presidential candidate takes place for us to realize that violence is increasingly becoming our language.

Just seeing the blood in the stands where I might have sat at one point during a visit to the Butler Farm Show grounds still doesn’t seem real. How could something as horrific as what happened Saturday, July 13, during former President Donald Trump’s final political rally have happened where dairy princesses and 4H kids parade around every year?

As the eyes of the world once again turn to Western Pennsylvania for a violent incident, just as they have on October 11, 2018, when 11 people were killed in a hateful shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and so many times over the past few decades, I still believe that most of us in the region, and indeed the country as a whole, are good people.

Most people don’t settle their differences with guns, knives or bombs. Most fights don’t end with the terrible cost of the incident. And most community events pass without disaster.

But even with that, and the fact that this kind of incident hasn’t happened in America for forty years, since the assassination of President Reagan, Saturday’s event didn’t surprise me. I was shocked and saddened, but somehow it felt like something like this was imminent.

I am not a psychoanalyst who understands the minds of others, and we still do not know what motivated Saturday’s shooter, but the tension in the country has been palpable for months. The rhetoric has gone far beyond disagreement and into calls for blood and violence. And that violence has manifested itself far too often, with people being beaten and spat on at events.

It’s grown from ugly online trolls posting hate speech and personal attacks to actual threats on people’s lives to reprehensible actions that have real consequences. And it’s not just politics that’s driving the trend. Even in cities where violent crime is reported to be down, the incidents that do occur seem bigger and more vicious. Barely a day goes by without another mass shooting somewhere.

The nation has been through cycles of violence before and come out of them, so I hope that will be the case this time too. But now that we have the internet and social media to stoke and perpetuate resentment and anger, it will be a lot harder than just taking a breath, as Trump and President Biden urged after Saturday’s incident.

It’s time for people to look inward. Why are you so angry? Is that anger justified? Because most of the time, it isn’t, especially when you’re considering violence. There are better ways to deal with these dark tendencies, whether it’s seeking professional help or just talking to someone about it. And we need to be better at mediating when we see people going down a dark path.

But most of all, people need to realize that no matter how much they disagree with someone or their choices, they share a heritage as human beings and deserve respect. Everyone has frustrations and concerns, but that doesn’t mean those feelings should be addressed. Violence is never the answer, especially when it comes to who should be president.

Patrick O’Shea is a contributing editor to The Beaver County Times, Ellwood City Ledger and Somerset Daily American. His goal is to promote talk over fight and less violence in the community. He can be reached at [email protected].