The slaughter Thursday in The Capital, an Annapolis, Md., newspaper, illustrated the vulnerability of journalists and set off much discussion in the news media about their role in society. This included talk of whether Donald Trump’s antagonism helps create peril for news people. My short take: Guns create peril for all living creatures.

The newsroom in Annapolis was targeted by a man whose anger at the newspaper dated back to a critical story in 2011, long before Trump entered the national political stage. Was he further enabled by Trump’s “jokes” about violence against the opposition? Don’t know.

I do know that rage simmers thanks to Trump. But I also know rage is not new.

I have a regular caller — three times this week. He calls from an untraceable number. He does poor impressions of Bill Clinton, delights at Trump victories and rages at setbacks. He curses me. He makes frequent reference to the odd facial appearance left by my artificial eye. I joke about him and on the rare occasions when he calls during office hours I give him a blast on my Acme Thunderer whistle.


But, really, who knows what his trigger might be and whether he might take up arms?

Being in the public eye invites differences of opinion. Back when I was writing about the new concealed carry permits and fighting for disclosure of that information, I had another taste of this. My phone rang all night with curses and vituperation. There were threats to kill me and kill my dog. One caller promised to bring 14 — he specified 14 — friends to the Arkansas Times office on a Monday morning for a workout with bats on my “mother-f****ing goggle-eyed ” skull. They didn’t show up. The worst overt act was the flattening of four tires on my car, parked outside my house. I was “doxed” before doxing was a thing — a map to my home was published on the Internet, my phone number was widely circulated as were the types of cars we owned. One critic called to laugh at how he’d learned my home telephone and circulated it on the web. I had to laugh back at his assumed genius. My name and number have been in the phone book since 1973. (I should say WAS in the phone book, since phone books don’t exist anymore.) I also was placed on the mailing list of many gun organizations.


I do not begin to wholly laugh these things off. But you can’t think about them too much. You have to keep on keeping on, as the staff of the Annapolis newspaper did heroically yesterday by putting out a damn newspaper. It could not have been easy with five dead colleagues and others injured.

I’ll let others worry about Trump’s refusal to comment on the shootings when met by reporters on the White House lawn and about a recent call for vigilante action against journalists by one notorious right-winger. In a way, the most odious reaction was at Fox News — it checked to see if there was an “ideological bent” to the newspaper that perhaps could be used to explain a mass killing. Nope. Just a community newspaper covering the community. As if a left-wing-rag slaughter would have been understandable.

We have too many guns. There are means to make them less problematic short of confiscation, including measures to keep them out of the hands of angry people with potential to open fire. (Admittedly, peace orders entered over the years ultimately didn’t deter the newspaper shooter.) So while I I mourn the journalists, I also mourn the children and the factory workers and the mail carriers and all the others who’ve been shot dead by angry men (and they do all seem to be men). And I mourn the lack of sufficient political courage to do something about it.

I celebrate the Moms Demand movement. If we’re lucky, we’ll send some of those brave women into the legislature in November.