As individuals reply to the assassination try on former President Trump, many are pondering what has gotten us right here.
What can we anticipate for the way forward for our nation? Readers speculate a few attainable change of coronary heart from GOP leaders in the case of gun reform. They wish to know if we’re going to proceed to see elected officers refuse to take accountability for manifesting a tradition the place violence appears not solely acceptable however inspired. Or, because the furor dies down, will we proceed to stay in a rustic the place an assassination try on a former president just isn’t actually as surprising appropriately?
No matter get together affiliation, there may be one factor readers agree on — america mustn’t condone political violence.
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To the editor: This presidential election cycle has brought about many people to really feel burdened and overwhelmed because the political surroundings has challenged our capability to manage. In a time when so many battle with their psychological well being, the political discourse appears so as to add gasoline to the fireplace. We get up, learn the headlines and reporting and really feel overwhelmed, anxious and susceptible.
After I discovered that an assassination try was made on former President Trump, I felt a spread of feelings. I spotted that we stay in a world the place worry has remodeled individuals on either side in order that they really feel contempt and dehumanize others who don’t suppose as they do.
That’s why I took coronary heart after I discovered President Biden spoke with Trump. Biden put aside their ideological variations and demeaning name-calling and acknowledged the sanctity of their widespread humanity. In these turbulent occasions, I would like this trade to be an instance of character and humanity at its finest. I’ve hope.
Jeanne Ortiz, Lengthy Seaside
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To the editor: A few of us are sufficiently old to recollect the assassination of presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy 55 years in the past. A number of weeks earlier than that assassination, I keep in mind RFK coming to Mass at our parish and parishioners had been swarming him asking for autographs, with no safety element in any respect to guard him. I additionally keep in mind the morning after the assassination that the Irish nuns, our academics on the parochial faculty, had been crying over this nice loss. I, after all, recalled the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. only a yr earlier, and I remembered six years earlier these nuns main us to church to wish for God to avoid wasting the lifetime of President Kennedy after we first heard the information that he was shot.
There are some who’ve mentioned that God protected President Trump and I’m grateful that he was spared any critical harm. Nevertheless, these bullets that narrowly missed Trump killed a loving husband and father, and critically injured two others. That was not God’s doing.
At any time when these shootings happen, there are renewed requires cheap gun management, however in the long run nothing adjustments. If we do nothing, we can not anticipate that God will shield us from ourselves.
Steve Mills, Glendale
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To the editor: These of us who’re Trumpists help the person due to the fist raised defiantly within the air mere seconds after almost giving his life for his nation. He’s a fighter, we would like a fighter.
Opponents can unfold lies and calumnies all they like about him being Stalin, Hitler or Devil. The left has tried to destroy him now for eight years. They’ve come shut, however haven’t defeated the fighter.
Come November Trump will sweep Joe Biden into the dustbin of historical past and he and we’ll start to Make America Nice Once more.
Michael Murphy, San Pedro
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To the editor: “Capturing shocks …” notes the headline of Kevin Rector’s article on the try to kill former President Trump. Actually? In my lifetime Martin Luther King Jr., John and Robert Kennedy had been all assassinated together with makes an attempt on Reagan and Ford. Stunning? Take into consideration the mass shootings at faculties in Columbine, Sandy Hook and Uvalde, in addition to these on the Pulse nightclub in Florida and in Las Vegas. The one actual shock is that on daily basis there are extra weapons being manufactured and bought on this nation.
The headline might have simply as properly have been “Ho hum, one other capturing.”
Larry Harmell, Granada Hills
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To the editor: The tried assassination of Donald Trump has shocked this nation. We want him properly as he resumes his marketing campaign, grateful that the bullet solely grazed his ear and that he might be on the Republican Nationwide Conference this week.
And we specific condolences to the household of Corey Comperatore, who died defending his household from the gunshots.
Violence breeds violence — whether or not by a mob or by a single particular person. We’ve pictures of marchers at Charlottesville and keep in mind their racist chants. We can not overlook pictures of the mob on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 on a harmful drive via the constructing as legislators ran to security and safety.
True, politicians ought to mood their rhetoric in order to not inflame the opposition’s anger and retaliation. However that’s not sufficient. Gun house owners ought to assess their must personal and to bear arms. Mother and father ought to take into account the hazard of getting weapons of their dwelling, accessible to their relations. And all of us, now nervous in public venues and at political rallies, ought to proceed supporting gun management in order that people and mobs might be restrained from violent motion.
How one can make America protected from gun violence must be a part of marketing campaign platforms and political speeches, with the pledge that stopping gun violence will serve the widespread good and save lives.
Lenore Navarro Dowling, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Now that it’s been discovered that Trump’s would-be murderer used an AR-15 assault-style rifle, will the gun-loving MAGA crowd within the Senate, the Home and the nation at massive lastly agree {that a} ban on such horrific weapons may be very a lot so as? Will laws be enacted any time quickly to stop these rifles from falling into the fingers of people that haven’t any enterprise possessing them? Based mostly on a long time of congressional inaction and kowtowing to America’s intractable gun foyer, I’m not holding my breath.
Tom Stapleton, Glendale
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To the editor: In fact, we should always all condemn political violence (re: “Trump capturing factors to rising threats of political violence”).
However let’s put this into perspective. We must always condemn Trump for the way in which he’s stoked violence on this nation since he started his run for the presidency in 2016. He’s spurred battle and violence at his cultish rallies, public speeches, interviews and occasions for years.
He incited an assault on our nation’s Capitol in an try to subvert our electoral course of and deny the desire of the citizens. And he’s most answerable for undermining the rule of regulation in our nation, assailing his prosecutions as illegitimate and promising to “weaponize” the Division of Justice and actual “retribution” if he regains the White Home.
So we shouldn’t let an tried assassination obscure the fact of Trump’s ongoing marketing campaign of dividing the nation and overtly fueling violence.
Take a stand as soon as extra towards violence as a response to our political battle. However don’t overlook Trump has proven he’ll do something to wreck our democracy and acquire the boundless energy of a despot ruling America with corruption, vengeance and an iron hand.
T.R. Jahns, Hemet
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To the editor: The tried assassination Saturday of former President Trump makes it much more important that President Biden instantly take himself out of the operating on this yr’s election.
Biden’s marketing campaign level that “Donald Trump is an existential risk to our democracy” has been supplied by some on the suitable as a possible motivating issue for the gunman.
President Biden must drop this fundamental messaging, as a result of will probably be perpetually related to him it doesn’t matter what. Democrats want a contemporary candidate and a contemporary message. No one ever persuaded anyone by trashing the man that the particular person they’re attempting to persuade idolizes.
In my view that particular person must be a Democratic governor — most anybody however Gavin Newsom — who can deliver each administrative expertise and a brand new message to the race.
Trump could also be unbeatable at this level it doesn’t matter what, however with out a new candidate, if nothing else adjustments, he’s unbeatable for certain, and he’ll take many, many down-ballot Democrats with him.
David Van Iderstine, Los Angeles
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To the editor: I didn’t vote for Donald Trump and won’t. Having mentioned that, throughout my lifetime the next profitable and tried assassinations of public figures have occurred:
Harry Truman: 11/1/50
John F. Kennedy: 11/22/63
Malcolm X: 2/21/65
Martin Luther King Jr.: 4/4/68
Robert F. Kennedy: 6/5/68
George Wallace: 5/15/72
Gerald Ford: 9/5/75 and 9/22/75
Larry Flynt: 3/6/78
John Lennon: 12/8/80
Ronald Reagan: 3/30/81
Donald Trump: 7/13/24
Whether or not individuals agree or disagree with these leaders just isn’t the purpose. Violence is not any solution to handle a problem.
Robert Schoenburg, West Hills
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To the editor: “There’s no place in America for this type of violence” was President Biden’s response to the tried assassination of former President Trump.
Feels like what you’d anticipate from our political leaders throughout an act of utmost political turmoil, proper? Nicely, not in at present’s GOP.
In what might have been a uncommon and fleeting second of political unity, MAGA Republicans selected as an alternative to spew harmful rhetoric that can solely proceed to polarize the nation.
Inside minutes of the information, Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) tweeted “Joe Biden despatched the orders.” Then simply minutes after that he posted once more, “The Republican District Lawyer in Butler County, PA, ought to instantly file prices towards Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination.”
The official X account from the Home GOP Judiciary Committee, chaired by Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), tweeted:
“Joe Biden: ‘It’s time to place Trump in a bullseye.’ That Simply Occurred.”
And naturally, I couldn’t overlook Marjorie Taylor Greene, who posted on X, “Democrats wished this to occur. They’ve wished Trump gone for years they usually’re ready to do something to make that occur.”
Trump’s MAGA minions had been so fast responsible their political rivals for an tried assassination — for what? To capitalize on a powder keg of political turmoil that places the very basis of our democratic beliefs in danger. As we speak’s GOP cares extra about defeating Joe Biden and the “radical left” than they care about our democracy, our structure, and the good individuals of this nation.
The far proper’s response to Sunday’s occasions ought to scare each American.
I’m eternally grateful that President Trump is OK, however the speedy aftermath from this ordeal, largely perpetuated by his proteges, is why we have to mobilize towards them in November. On the finish of the day Donald Trump continues to be a risk to democracy — however we have to struggle him with ballots, not bullets.
Jack Burchess, Gillette, Wyo.
