Late last night, police in Montgomery County, Maryland, arrested a man near the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
According to NBC News, the suspect—26-year-old Nicholas Roske from Simi Valley, California—was found with a gun, a knife, pepper spray, and "burglary tools." Police stopped him a block away from Kavanaugh's Chevy Chase home, where he allegedly admitted he was there to kill the justice.
NBC further reports that Roske initially contacted authorities himself, indicating that he had "homicidal thoughts" and "had traveled from California" with a gun "to attack the justice." Officials told The Washington Post, which first broke the story, that Roske was upset over the recent leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, as well as recent mass shootings. News of his arrest was confirmed by the Supreme Court. He has been charged with attempted murder.
Speaking of political violence: tomorrow night, the House Select Committee tasked with investigating the January 6 attack will air its first public hearing. The committee's investigation entails political violence on one particular date, committed by partisans on one side of the political aisle. But political violence is neither new nor one-sided. While supporters of then-outgoing President Donald Trump erected a gallows on U.S. Capitol grounds that day, a few months earlier and a few miles away, pro-labor protesters constructed a guillotine outside the Washington, D.C., home of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
A 2020 survey showed that 36 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of Democrats said it would be "a little" justified "to use violence in advancing [their side's] political goals." This was an increase from 30 percent for each side just a few months earlier. In February of last year, 56 percent of Republicans indicated that violence could be appropriate "to arrest the decline of the traditional American way of life," a sentiment that 35 percent of independents and 22 percent of Democrats agreed with.
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