From The Smoking Gun:

OCTOBER 28–Angered that two neighborhood teenagers knocked over a John McCain sign on his lawn, an Ohio man allegedly grabbed a rifle and fired three times at the duo as they sought to drive away from his Warren Township home. Kenneth Rowles, 50, was charged with felonious assault in connection with the Saturday afternoon incident, which resulted in one boy suffering a minor bullet wound. According to a Warren Township Police Department report, Patrick Wise, 16, yelled, “This is for Obama” as he knocked over the McCain sign. Wise’s cousin, Kyree Flowers, 17, was waiting in the passenger seat of the SUV, which was struck by three bullets fired by Rowles. One bullet hit Flowers in the arm, while another shattered the passenger’s and driver’s side windows.

And damn straight he should be charged with felonious assault: a .22 caliber rifle isn’t a freaking toy. It’s a weapon, and unless somebody’s pointing one back at you it should be firmly kept away from any disputes. Thank God no one got killed.

You know what would be nice? A joint statement from the candidates telling their supporters to back off on this. Because I’m getting tired of reading about Molotov cocktails, and hoaxed hate crimes, and shot-up campaign buses, and black eyes at campaign rallies, and pepper spray attacks on campaign workers, and defaced buildings/cars/campaign signs. I understand that even now we’re getting off insanely lightly, compared to the rest of the world – but that just means that the rest of the world’s pretty messed up, sometimes.

Enough is freaking enough.

Moe Lane

PS: I don’t care whose fault you think that this ultimately is. And push a partisan political agenda on this somewhere else.