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“A man carrying a gun, a knife and zip ties was arrested Wednesday near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house in Maryland after threatening to kill the justice.” AP News
Both sides stress the seriousness of violence against judges:
“We warned after the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion that a fanatic could attempt a violent act against one of the Justices, and here we are. The draft opinion suggested there is a 5-4 Court majority to overturn Roe, and it’s all too easy to imagine some 21st-century John Brown thinking he could prevent the ruling by assassinating a Justice. Now comes a dangerously close call…
“The Justices live in suburban Washington neighborhoods, not in gated compounds. They receive personal security as individuals, which has been enhanced since the leak. But their families don’t, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett has school-age children. If America is more polarized than at any point since the Civil War, as progressives often claim, then the political class needs to take the risk of violence more seriously. The Senate in early May unanimously passed a bill to enhance security for the Justices’ families, in line with what’s offered for high-ranking executive and legislative officers… Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats [should] pass the bill immediately.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“We apparently just came unacceptably, terrifyingly close to catastrophe. The assassination of a Supreme Court justice would be a personal and national tragedy. But it would be more than that. It would be a threat to American democracy every bit as severe as the January 6 insurrection and Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. It’s simply impossible to imagine how a high court torn apart by violence could function in a way that Americans accept…
“I doubt we will see many people cheering on this crime. That isn’t enough, though. We can’t just condemn this and move on. Everyone, across the ideological spectrum, needs to take this completely seriously and figure out what can be done to prevent the country from plunging into a new era of political violence reminiscent of the 1960s and 1970s. The fate of our republic depends on it.”
Jeremy Schulman, Mother Jones
Other opinions below.
“Here is a prediction that can be made with 100% certainty. If a Democrat-appointed Supreme Court Justice had just had their life threatened, this nation’s politics and media would be in uproar. Were a man to have just been found outside the home of a Democrat-appointed Judge, seeking to kill them, it would be wall-to-wall coverage. But it was outside the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh that a man was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday morning…
“This news hardly made the front page of The New York Times. A tiny news in brief line was all it got. There was no wall-to-wall coverage on the networks. So far the nation’s late night comics have not got the story between their teeth. Nobody is talking about the rise of fascism in America. Nobody even seems particularly interested in looking in the would-be assassin’s motives.”
Douglas Murray, New York Post
“It goes without saying that responsibility for this heinous act (and the more heinous intent behind it) lies with the would-be assailant, and whoever, if anyone, was collaborating with him. That said, it is open season on Supreme Court justices because President Biden and most Washington Democrats have refused to condemn the protests against them, fearing the wrath of their political base. Taking his cues from them, Attorney General Merrick Garland has refused to enforce the law…
“It is a federal crime to protest at the residence of a U.S. judge. Garland understands this well — he was a U.S. judge for over 20 years. Nevertheless, he is politicizing his job… The attorney general indignantly vows that he will not tolerate violence. But our law’s redline in this matter is not violence. It is political pressure and intimidation…
“Picketing and parading are forms of political pressure. There is no free-expression right to engage in them with the intent to influence a court case. The threat that protests will corrupt judicial proceedings — causing decisions to be made out of fear rather than faithful application of the law — is too great. Political pressure is for policy debates. It can have no place in judicial proceedings if we are to have the rule of law.”
Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review
“[Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY)] stood on the Supreme Court steps in 2020 in advance of a Supreme Court ruling on a Louisiana abortion law and thundered, about Kavanaugh and Trump appointee Neil M. Gorsuch, ‘I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.’ Schumer said he did not intend to threaten the justices or incite violence, but in the current environment, his language was unnecessarily incendiary…
“Somehow those who complain of rhetorical excess on one side are loath to hold those with whom they agree to the same standards. Indeed, Schumer’s language was oddly reminiscent of Kavanaugh’s angry screed against Democrats at his confirmation hearings: ‘You sowed the wind, the country will reap the whirlwind.’ Those who blasted Kavanaugh cannot credibly excuse Schumer, but also vice versa…
“[We need to grapple] seriously with the implications of this episode, which could have ended in unfathomable tragedy. That means not ducking responsibility for helping to create a climate of unhinged intolerance that may have fueled this dangerous moment.”
Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
“When judicial officers are killed for having done their job, the threat is to all of our safety. There is no safety in a society without a functioning legal system… We have a history of vigilantism in the United States. Think about the more than 4,000 lynchings of Blacks in America from 1877 to 1950. Today, multiple states with Republican-controlled legislatures have institutionalized vigilantism in a spate of state laws… Put it together with state laws sanctioning easy purchases of firearms, and you have a formula for the breakdown of order…
“Even more dangerous are statements by elected officials such as Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga), who in May 2021 compared to mere ‘tourists’ the vicious Jan. 6 Capitol attackers whose actions left more than 140 police officers injured… Americans need to act to combat gun violence and vote to elect in the coming mid-terms the kind of officials who will ensure that we rebuild a society where each of us is safe.”
Dennis Aftergut, The Hill
