First off... the shooter in El Paso was also a Democrat.. his online profile has been altered several times and the original political affiliation was changed from Democrat to Republican. There are Screen Shots of the changes... your research is a bit faulty. Both shooters appear to have mental health issues. They also both seem to be big into violent video games. As to hate, I have repeatedly listened to Waters, Pelosi, and so many others advocate for attacks on Trump supporters. When will they ever step up to the plate and admit to the hateful promotion of attacks coming out of them and put a stop to it. Both shooters are just plain evil. It is the evil we are fighting and evil does not have an exclusive of just being white. Both happened in "Gun free zones", they might as well put up a sign that reads victims here. The one shooter even addressed that, he looked for a gun free zone. Both sides of the isle need to stop the blame game, and actually come together to do something about the very poor mental health system we have in this country. They need to stop the destruction of morality that has been under attack for a very long time and get it back into our schools and in every day life.

"Both shooters are just plain evil." "Both happened in 'Gun free zones'" Excellent points, Gadget1132. Strict gun control laws have NOT proven to stop the violence we are seeing.
Persons with evil intent will find a way to harm innocent people...whether they are spree-shooters like these or gang-bangers who prowl the streets of our cities nationwide.
The sentiment in Robert Romano's commentary-"So, let's work on it together as one country, one nation." is echoed in Gadget1132's comment. That would assume that the
Democrat/Socialist Party, the various Leftist factions and anarchist groups in our Country
today, and the Main Stream Media(the fake-news Propagandist Press) WISH to have that
conversation. None of these have demonstrated a desire for a discussion with the GOP or conservative leaders...rather the continued violence offers them opportunities to rail against "racists", "white supremacists", "Nazis" and "Fascists". All this disparaging rhetoric is inflammatory...which is the Left's Modus Operandi. Finally, I agree with Gadget1132...our "poor mental health system" and "morality that has been under attack for a very long time". The Democrat/Socialist Party and the rest of the Leftist movement in this country cannot be
relied on to solve these problems...rather they exacerbate them.

I'd go further. Calling your political opponents Nazis and fascists, in this climate, is an incitement to violence. It legitimizes violence. Scott Adams had an interesting take on the Hitlerization of our politics in 2017 that I encourage you to read: https://www.scottadamssays....

I agree with you, getliberty...Scott Adams commentary nails it...thanx for tip...

Chicago is a gun free zone. There have been 1517 shooting victims so far in 2019. So more laws do NOT solve the problem. And, I know the dems aren't worried about the amount of deaths. If they were, they would be making more laws against drugs. US drug overdose deaths rose to record 72,000 last year. But, instead, they are making less laws, and less punishment against this deadly scourge. There is NO comparison to the few multi shooter deaths, and the drug deaths. If they cared, they work on making drugs illegal.

Thank you for another fine article. I agree with much of your sentiment, but I would caution that the disinformation and abject political manipulation of horrid events of the past few years are never concisely explained by MSM or any other media that cares to investigate the facts. The Communist Party, nee DOC, has become so dangerously radicalized that it has morphed from increasingly insane homicidal rhetoric and action to a murder suicide platform.

Kirsten Gillibrand said there is no linkage between gun control and illegal immigration. Actually, there is. He was a white supremacist and anti-illegal immigration. No or few illegals, maybe no shooting. And it's interesting that the Dayton shooter was a Democrat. Maybe if we need gun control, we also should outlaw the Democrat Party.

If laws that were on the books were only enforced we would probably not see as much open insanity as we have today. The following law should without exception porhibit anyone affiliated with Islam from entering the US. And yet the contry is flooded with them by a party that shares the EXACT same ideals as Islam. global domination and totalitarian rule.
https://www.law.cornell.edu...

In my view, these mass shootings -- and many other societal ills -- are _largely_ due to two things: the breakdown of the family, and the end way back when of forced institutionalization. Generally, boys learn how to be men -- including what is acceptable and what is not -- from a caring father, step-father, or other man. And there are simply too many people on the street that shouldn't be.

Rob, this perspective is not enough. I've followed your editorials for 10 years as promoted by ALG, since leading an award-winning and (occasionally) nationally published editorial section. I've subscribed to editorials from both sides of the U.S. binary since then. The core perspective above is accurate--people should not murder political opponents--but it is spineless. This isn't a time for rhetorical balance. You are trying to soften and justify aggression from primarily white, male mass-murderers who feel they are losing their stranglehold on the rest of society, and will kill to keep it. Time to get real, Rob, and acknowledge the deep-seated fear in the young men who access easy-to-get weapons of slaughter to "defend" their perceived birthright as mediocre "masters of the universe"--and in all holders of privilege who have yet to fully acknowledged the impact of their flaccid character on others, cowering in low self-awareness rather than standing in integrity. These young men absorb a deep-seated sense of deserving from somewhere--how much will you bet me in cold, hard cash that this poison rises from the depths of their existing, unquestioned value systems, as propagated by their unquestioned, authoritarian political and religious ideologies, which keep them oblivious to their assumed entitlement to controlling society under the auspices of "responsible patriarchal leadership" ... a privilege which, due to its lack of genuine challenge, keeps them completely average? The thing is, on a certain level, they know this. They know people from outside their entitled demographic have outstripped them in skill, in capability, in talent, in experience, and in wisdom. They know it's not a merit system, because if it were, they couldn't compete and dominate. And they are well prepared to murder everyone around them to keep their spot in line. Conservative, white, protestant Christian men and women, if you are so certain of your ability to compete, why have you invented so many rules to keep other people down? Think about it. That, my dear friend Rob, is what someone with a spine would say. Keep on writing :)

Or, the shooters were both nuts, albeit from different ends of the political spectrum, and otherwise did not share much in common, although they were both white, young males and extremely misguided and radicalized.

The shooter in Dayton was not reacting to a feeling he was losing his "white privilege," he was a leftist who rejected it. I will acknowledge that the El Paso shooter felt that way, but those just are not the descriptors I would choose when it's a lot easier to note that he was a white supremacist, racist and insane. These attacks are also quite anomalous. You can oppose President Trump's immigration policy, as the Dayton shooter did, or support it, as the El Paso shooter did, and never have a need to resort to violence to get that view across. The vast majority of people who either support or oppose the President's immigration policies are not committing acts of mass murder in response to them. Those that are are simply deranged murderers.

Nor is supporting enforcing our immigration laws as written a means of keeping those who "have outstripped them in skill, in capability, in talent, in experience, and in wisdom" out of the country, no more so than supporting the President's proposals for immigration reform, which would boost legal immigration on the basis of economic merit while reducing low-skilled familial chain migration. Heck, you can even be concerned about declining fertility regardless of race (it's declining almost everywhere in advanced economies) or worry that efforts to support open borders are politically motivated to boost voter rolls of one party over another without coming up with wacky manifestos justifying mass violence. None of that has to do with "keeping people down," it has to do with supporting policies that will help the economy grow and preserving the two-party system in the U.S.

If you've been reading these pages for 10 years, you know that, because we've written on these issues often and have never called for, condoned or endorsed political violence during that time.

Thank you for taking the time to respond :) And civilly as well, we are doing great. Yes I've read for 10 years, but mostly to build my tolerance ;) So congratulations. I think neither of us (or, by and large, the vast majority of U.S. citizens) condone violence. Hence the support for your core premise. What I put to you is that there are ideological undercurrents feeding those who do choose to murder, or to violently act on incited hate, which have feeder-rivers in the ideologies that many of your readers think are innocent, or "common-sense." Similarly, I would say most people are not for open borders, as is perhaps assumed above. I'm talking about something internal within the U.S. Opinions and actions triggered perhaps by immigration, by declining proportions of the amalgam that is "whiteness," whatever--but what I need you to acknowledge is that those very concerns are racist and wrong. The underlying concerns are what are immoral. That's the right thing to do. What I would have liked you to say, if I were the one writing your column, is a flat-out condemnation of this guy. Then condemn some centrist or leftie next time. I know not all columnists get to choose their headlines, so there's a chance the headline misrepresented your opinion, but in fact it didn't. You are a man with influence, so I would like you to have more integrity. Don't half-and-half massacres, because that's weak, Rob. You need to stand up unequivocally and say that racism is wrong. That murder is wrong. Not that it's wrong whatever side it comes from. That is the right thing to do, and I am certain a man of your standing sees the subtlety in that.

Racism is wrong. We condemned both acts of violence because they coincidentally occurred on the same day and because political violence is always wrong, regardless of the motivation. One is not more justified than the other. When it was a right-winger, such as Cesar Sayoc, we focused on him; when it was the left-winger in Tacoma, we focused on him. We're not going to stop condemning all of the political violence because none of it is justified. Should we have ignored the ideological motivations of the Dayton shooter because it upset somebody's desired narrative about the El Paso shooter? Not going to happen. They're all nuts! That's the point. You want to debate immigration policy? Let's do it in Congress, and civilly in the public square where it belongs.

This piece is as much of a message to our supporters as it is to the outside world. Readers here predominantly share a conservative perspective, and the responsible thing to do is to provide them with information relevant to the discussion about political violence. The El Paso shooter was a Trump supporter who wanted to build the wall. I'm trying to tell them that it's okay to be a Trump supporter and support border barriers and a legal immigration system, that doesn't make anyone racist, but that violence in the name of those policies is evil. Targeting Hispanics because they are Hispanic is evil and racist. I fear that we are spiraling into more political violence, not less, and this was one way I thought we could convey an unequivocal message that what happened in El Paso was extremely misguided and wrong.

One way of illustrating that is also conveying information about the Dayton shooter that is similarly relevant to the discussion. The shooter was a radical, pro-Antifa leftist who supported Warren who thinks his political opponents are Nazis who should be murdered.

What are we conveying here but the golden rule? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. We are supporting the civil society and limited government. You can't do that denouncing one violent ideology while tacitly consenting to another because they say they are fighting racism and Nazis. They aren't, they're attacking law enforcement and journalists in the streets. Denouncing only one side of unjustified violence is no denunciation at all, it is partisan blindness. We do not wish to contribute to that, not one bit, and so we're taking a consistent stance on the issue of political violence and terrorism in our midst across the political spectrum.

Thanks again for the response, much appreciated. It's your paper and of course you are entitled to write whatever you like. :) Definitely grasp the call toward civility and away from violence. My main concern is that this opinion could be read as an attempt to keep your readership from deeply examining their own beliefs--what has surprised me the past several years is the predominance of commentary from conservative friends and family, and pundits, when confronted with political issues, along the lines of: "Now all those libtards know how we felt under Obama," "A liberal president did x bad thing, so Trump is justified," etc. etc. Comparative justification, not fact-based justification. I honestly thought, with the usual single-minded focus on foundational sources like the Bible, the Constitution, etc. of many in this camp, that there would be a greater focus on integrity with a conservative administration. Instead, even from a number of ex-Navy friends, all I hear is children whining, "It's not fair, I'll do what I want." I want more from a group who frequently tells people to "shut up and stop crying because feelings aren't real," than the childlike lack of integrity of indulging their own feelings on the world stage ;) This article is more than justified in condemning all violence, which I understand is the point, and is commendable. It's the subtext of making the readership feel comfortable, as in "Well our guy did a bad thing but theirs does too"--that mental laziness that seems to be so rife in modern punditry--that I think all sides need to examine. Thanks again for your time.

Please allow me to post an article by Suzanne Hamner that only emphasizes the all to important history of violence in this country and why we should be very careful to not underestimate the ability of controling interests to incite slaughter people and disguise it to meet an agenda. https://freedomoutpost.com/...

This is total BS. The fact is that evil has always existed and will always exist until the end of time. As such the answer is self reliance to protect yourself and your family. It should be mandatory for every American Citizen to carry a weapon for that purpose. Since you already have to pass a background check to get a gun permit, and you must receive basic training as part of the licensing process, the next logic step is to have a legally armed citizenry that can protect itself and other, when one of these situations arise. The hell with gun control. We must control our destiny, including the right to use deadly force when needed for our survival.

This article is not about gun control. It's about denouncing political violence regardless of the motive. We support the right of self-defense. We oppose murdering perceived political opponents.