So another crazy took a shot at or near the president yesterday.  The lack of news coverage is stunning, but then there is little actual news to report and the commentariat is enjoying the holiday weekend.  And yet, it is becoming so common as to drain such events of their news value which is what I think is the actual news here.  The real story is in our reactions to events, not the events proper.

My initial reaction was to be overcome with a sort of angry grief.  A passage in Romans 1 came to mind:

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible mankind, of birds, four-footed animals, and crawling creatures.

Therefore God gave them up to vile impurity in the lusts of their hearts, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

I wondered if God was in the process of giving up on us given the seeming increasing frequency of events like this.  But this morning I noted this in the story I linked at the beginning:

The suspect was identified by a person familiar with the investigation as 21-year-old Xxxxxx Xxxx. According to the source, Xxxx had a previous run-in with Secret Service in July 2025 in which he tried to gain entry to the White House and was arrested and sent to a psychiatric ward for mental health issues.  [redacted here – we don’t repeat the name of presidential shooters]

A man suffering from obviously severe mental health issues was released from care in less than a year.  And so another of Paul’s writings came to mind:

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

I reflected on how much we failed this individual.  We hustled him out of care instead of give him the care he so obviously needed.  No one around him cared enough to try and get him back into care.

The initial passage from Romans that I quoted is so often used in “hellfire and damnation” preaching connected with what might rightly be called “the sins of the flesh” – sex, drugs and rock-n-roll.  But I think the real sin here is our failure to really, sacrificially care for the other.  We failed the shooter, so it should not be surprising that he struck out.

This is the weekend we remember those who cared for us with the ultimate sacrifice.  The best way to remember them is to do likewise.