Thank you for clarifying, I really did think with straight faced talk of murdering legislators that I'd fallen out of the loop. But no, it's beyond mischaracterization — it's a brazen lie.
A necessary element of murder is the unlawful killing of another. I am aware of five deaths connected with the Capitol unrest.
- Brian Sicknick, suffered two strokes and died of natural causes
- Ashli Babbitt, died from a gunshot wound to her left shoulder
- Roseanne Boyland, died of acute amphetamine intoxication
- Kevin Greeson and Ben Phillips both died of hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease
Babbitt's death is the only homicide above and none of the deceased persons are legislators. There were also at least two suicides shortly afterward among the responding police officers.
There’s a reason why Ashli Babbitt was shot.
Yes, and Atkin's tweet is ridiculous. Even a sorry rag like TPM should be embarrassed to have repeated that.
I think you’re missing Atkins’ point that murders of legislators were prevented.
Look at history. A frenzied mob loosed against its perceived enemies has often killed those perceived enemies.
Whatever point the tweet is trying to make it's doing so by misstating the facts. It's not my role as a reader to rehabilitate lies into plausible interpretations.
It's a debatable conjecture whether murders of legislators were prevented. It's demonstrably false that any such murder occurred.
It’s hard to watch this in its entirety and not end up thinking that the imminent murder of legislators wasn’t a very real possibility.
I think I see what you're saying; that the word within can be taken in the anticipatory sense. That would be reckless authorship at best. Looking at his work and bylines though, I believe it was very likely a lie with an escape clause.