Arizona vs Pakistan

Both places had murders of high officials in the past week. In Pakistan a bodyguard assigned to the Punjab governor by a political rival murdered him (while the rest of the bodyguard stood by and watched) and boasted of it, claiming divine sanction; and is widely cheered. In Arizona a leftish (but too weird for any party) nutcase with a violent past shot a Representative and killed a judge and a child and several elderly bystanders and others. Everybody condemns him, though I notice the usual suspects are trying to make political hay of it.

I'd rather live in Arizona. There will always be crazies, in all parts of the world; and they often hunger for notoriety instead of respect. But when murders are driven by political gangsters, the whole civil society is shot. And when the murder is done because the politician wasn't fascist enough; and people throw rose petals at the killer--stay far away; there's a generation of horror growing there.

Update: Rather than just accept my take on motives or follow partisan theorizing, check out some data on political violence. There are only 8 cases mentioned, but that beats 0 by a wide margin.