A Couple of Notes on the Great Virginia Congressional Baseball Massacree of 2017

From this month's "open thread" at Independent Political Report:

Robert Capozzi: I'm curious what reaction the abolitionist anarchists here had to the shooting of Rep. Scalise and others?

KN@PPSTER: A supporter of one of the two most prominent street gangs in the US took some shots at prominent members of the other one. That's life in the big city.* Can't say I like it, but when you choose the thug life it comes with potential consequences of that kind. I'm glad no innocent bystanders were killed in the crossfire. But of course all the innocent bystanders will pay in the form of being expected to pay for and put up with additional security theater and police statism.

Silver lining: The House canceled all votes and hearings for the day. That's not much, but it's something, I guess.

* Addendum not appearing at IPR: If this had happened in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or even St. Louis, and if the gangs involved had been e.g. Bloods, Crips, Latin Lords, MS-13 or whatever instead of Democrats and Republicans, it would likely have not made the front page of the following day's newspaper even in the city where it occurred.

Robert Capozzi: Is this an issue you’d like to see L[ibertarian]s run for office on?

KN@PPSTER: Of course not. For one thing, it's not an "issue." It's an incident. A week from now 75% of the public won't remember it and 23% of the remaining 25% won't give a shit about it, unless you consider meme-making to be giving a shit. That might change if there are copycat attacks or if Scalise actually croaks, but in the usual course of things it's impossible to get the public upset about that stuff no matter how hard they try.

And they do try. Every time some mere mundane touches the White House fence and gets tackled lest his peasant feet profane the sacred White House lawn, or the Capitol Police gun down a woman who gets confused by the security theatrics on Pennsylvania Avenue and makes a wrong turn, there are a couple of days of ritual sackcloth-and-ashes yap-fests about the horrors of our poor oppressed public servants having to mingle with the rabble. Then when they realize everyone has clicked off to watch Seinfeld re-runs instead of breaking out a string quartet to accompany weeping on their behalf, they introduce a couple of new measures to hassle the public some more and go back to their normal routine of thieving and whoring.

If it did become an actual issue that candidates have to address, I'd recommend going with Paulie's line or some other variant of "play stupid games, win stupid prizes."