Carrying a gun to a political meeting is an obscenity. Anyone who does it, even if they are within their legal rights, should be ashamed. Our founders fought a revolution (and, yes, took up arms) to build a society where political disputes are not settled through force or intimidation–and that’s the only purpose of bringing a weapon to a political discussion: to intimidate.

Rick Perlstein has a Washington Post Q&A in which he does an excellent job explaining (and contextualizing) the recent wave of rightwing anger and misconduct. Perlstein is a notable political author, known for his books “Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America” and “Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus.”

One thing to note: there’s a marked coherence gap between the left-wing and right-wing questions, and it does not favor the latter.