Does the United States have an issue with violent crime?

To hear the campaign rhetoric coming out of the DNC, not anymore. They'll gladly tell you that violent crime is down, that homicides are down among other violent crime categories, and they're quick to take responsibility for that.

They won't be as quick to take any responsibility for creating a situation where someone felt like they should try to shoot and kill former President Donald Trump.

But since that happened, the media has been pretty quick to jump on the gun control issue.

At the Columbus Dispatch, though, they try to make the case that what we saw on Saturday is reflective of violent crime in this nation as a whole.

The attempt on Donald Trump’s life is despicable, yet unfortunately not without precedent. Since Dwight D. Eisenhower left office, presidents John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and presidential candidate George Wallace have all been the subjects of an assassination plot.

The shooting of Trump is reflective of the violence that is woven into the fabric of America’s brand of democracy.

Regardless of one's political affiliation and ideological leanings the idea that we as Americans are incapable of disagreeing without being disagreeable is disappointing yet becoming more and more commonplace.

The heinous action taken on the part of this lost soul is to some degree indicative of how far America has fallen as a civilized nation and a beacon of world democracy.

Well, that's a load of male bovine excrement.

First, calling the shooter a "lost soul" is giving him far too much of the benefit of the doubt. He tried to assassinate someone. The term "lost soul" suggests someone worthy of pity. I refuse to muster any for someone who tried to assassinate a political candidate. It's just not something I'm willing to do, and to suggest that he's a lost soul rather than a monster who tried to undermine the political process in this nation is telling.

Now, the author isn't wrong regarding assassination plots. Most of those targeted Republicans, I should note, but not universally.

Yet the truth is that while the author is bound and determined to suggest that assassination plots are reflective of violent crime as a whole, that's a massive stretch.

Presidents and presidential candidates exist in a very different world than most of us experience and the people who target them for violence aren't remotely the same kind of people who would knock over their neighborhood convenience store. The various cultural pressures are different, the underlying issue is different, and even the source of firearms is different.

The fact that someone being shot on the street for talking to the wrong girl is a shooting, as is what happened to Trump is where the similarities begin and end.

Assassination plots are driven by very different factors. People are trying to silence voices they disagree with. They're trying to take someone out because they didn't like how the electoral process played out or how it might play out. They're often feeling rather righteous about 

This whole framing is a disingenuous attempt to try and pressure Republicans into backing gun control in the wake of what happened with Trump. It's a fairly pathetic one, too.