The Peter Gabriel album that is best known for the songs “Biko” and “Games Without Frontiers” also contains a song called “Family Snapshot.” The song is about a man who assassinates a political leader, not because he despises the guy’s political views, but because he desperately wants the attention he was denied when he was a child.
The song should resonate today, because it is becoming increasingly likely that it is a good description of the guy who shot Trump. The near success of the wannabe assassin should particularly concern the right for three reasons. First, the right almost always attributes mass murders to mental illness; this guy wasn’t obviously crazy. Second, the place was crawling with good guys with guns, but they still couldn’t stop him. Finally, the shooter wouldn’t have had access to an AR-15 if it had been up to the blue team. It is the friends of the victims who would defend the shooter’s right to own an assault rifle.