The United States of America – and, indeed, all of us – have suffered another horrendous assassination attack.
When anyone seeks to do evil to any of our officials of our great nation, he attacks us all, not threatening just our lives, but also threatening our ideals of individual personal freedom and our nation.
As Democrat Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords stood in Tucson, Ariz., Saturday, meeting face to face with her constituents in the best of American democratic traditions, a surely deranged young man armed himself with an automatic firearm and attempted to express his dissent through murder.
Rep. Giffords fortunately survived the attack, but was gravely wounded. But a federal judge and five other citizens were killed, including an aide to the congresswoman and a 9-year-old little girl. And many other innocents were wounded.
Fortunately, some courageous Americans on the street risked their own lives to intervene, wrestling the murderer into submission as he attempted to continue firing.