How can we recognize the signs when someone is broken?

John Schrank, Lynette Fromme, John Hinkley, Jr., and now Thomas Matthew Crooks.

These are the names of those who have attempted to assassinate a president or former president.

Schrank took a shot Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Lynette Fromme attempted to kill Gerald Ford in 1975, Hinkley put a bullet in Ronald Reagan in 1981, and Crooks nipped Donald Trump’s ear July 13, 2024.

There were more attempts earlier in history, and four assassins succeeded, including John Wilkes Booth when he shot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head at point blank range in 1865, Charles Guiteau who gunned down James Garfield in 1881, Leon Czolgosz who killed William McKinley in 1901, and Lee Harvey Oswald who put two bullets into the head of John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Trump was literally a half an inch from losing his life, and Reagan almost died after his gunshot wound when doctors struggled to locate and remove the bullet.

While much is being made about how politics leads to the heinous acts, and while the media is not clean from some of these attacks, we can’t lose sight of a more pressing issue that leaves bread crumbs right back to these shooters — mental and social instability.

Hillary Clinton famously said that those who support Donald Trump need to be “deprogrammed” as if your political affiliation is a mental defect. That’s the fear we have of politics being interjected into mental fitness.

What I am referring to is the mental brokenness in any person that leads to the attempt on someone else’s life, especially a high profile target like Trump.

It’s not an excuse for the behavior, either. I was stunned when Hinkley was released from his mental facility within the last year. I don’t believe it is too much to ask to keep someone who shoots at a president in prison for the rest of their life.

But in the recent shooting, it seems there were plenty of signs that Crooks was not a stable person.

Classmates referred to Crooks and some of his high school friends as “school shooters.” Even they knew that if anyone was going to bring a gun to school and start shooting up students, Crooks was the guy.

How is it that teenagers know it but somehow we don’t make the connection that can actually save lives?

Our country has made mental illness a stigma, and we have also cut back significantly on mental health care services.

While the focus is on Trump, we can never forget that a husband and father was killed by Crooks, and two others were critically injured.

When a broken human being acts out, innocent people are in the cross hairs.

That’s why we have to be careful of the rhetoric we use. It’s not whether or not we have the freedom to speak however we choose. We do.

But is it responsible to say some of the things we’ve heard, or to see a comedian holding the severed head of the president?

It doesn’t take much to trigger a mentally unstable person. And yet we almost put out targets to unlock the unhinged.

We have to get better at identifying these characteristics, because the political rhetoric isn’t going to change. Bullying will never completely go away in schools and among children, and it almost never comes as a surprise when someone finally decides to act out on their negative impulses.

While we have some tough questions about protection at political events and our schools, no amount of security can ever completely stop a committed person from finding a way to do harm.

But what we can do is see the signs that lead to a person wanting to do harm. Too many stories of the perpetrators are the same. The characteristics are the same.

When we have a profile, we need to seek the proper help. 

When I was young, I struggled with my S and R sounds in speech. They were identified, I went to speech class with Mrs. Mosburg, and it was corrected.

Finding these other defects is no different. And it can save lives.