The articles about the attempt on Trump’s life are bad enough, but the comments are so full of baloney that readers risk having their cholesterol raised.

• Example: Trump is an “existential threat to democracy.” This is usually accompanied by a list of horrors that would make Hitler jealous and Jack the Ripper green with envy.

Well, let’s see. If electing Trump risks ending democracy, what should we do? 1) Write an angry letter to the editor of the local paper? 2) Write forceful tweets? 3) Yell at relatives and friends who are insufficiently anti-Trump? 4) Oil up grandpa’s old hunting rifle? Answer for any honest, consistent person: 4).

Either tone down the rhetoric, or admit the violence you are implying.

• Example: Internet users even more removed from reality claim the shooting was a ruse by Trump to gain supporters. This implies that Trump is so self-destructive that he paid a 20-year-old amateur shooter to shoot 130 yards and miss his brain by 1 or 2 inches. To call this ridiculous is an insult to the ridiculous.

Even more counter-factual, one internet denizen claims that an “assault” rifle fires a round so powerful that it destroys a human body, requiring DNA to identify it. This is what comes of believing anti-gun propaganda. In fact, standard military ammunition is caliber .223 or 5.56×45, a round that is basically a souped-up .22. Far from being super powerful, it is too feeble to be legal for hunting deer in many places.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3%9745mm_NATO