I was astonished to learn of what happened in my hometown of Butler on Saturday, July 13, 2024.

It was indeed shocking to find out that a large crowd of people cheered the promised political violence of mass deportation, and of overthrowing a coming election, and more, while rallying for a figure and a political party with a long, open history of advocating violence and even actively inciting it.

The fact that a very immediate type of violence was also committed at this event is terrible, and also deserves condemnation.

In a healthy society, we can and must reject the dreadful violence of attempted assassination, and of injury and death. It's profoundly troubling and appalling that the same crowd who was witness to that violence, and victim to it, and who subsequently and rightly say they abhor it, would seem to wholeheartedly approve of other equally horrible harm and violence, and to support those who vehemently advocate it.

Melanie Love,

Pittsburgh, formerly of Butler