I'm a woman who lives alone and I don't sit on my porch wondering who I'm going to shoot next

[wnylib]

61. The trigger-happy shootings by

paranoid RWers do make all of us more edgy. It certainly puts me on cautious alert.

But it's the trigger-happy edginess of the paranoid RWers that is creating caution and edginess in the rest of us.

Yesterday evening, I was at a nearby convenience store, wearing my mask as I always do when indoors away from home. The store staff and my neighbors who go there are used to my mask and know that I have health issues.

Two young guys, around late teens or early 20s were entering just as I was. One held the door for me, but with exaggerated politeness. His eyes had a look that combined contempt with humor.

Once inside, out of the blue, he stated to no one in particular that Donald Trump is the best president that ever existed. People ignored him so he turned to me and demanded to know if I agreed. I could have ignored him (and now think I should have), but I said that I was a lot older, had seen more presidents in my lifetime, and can't think of a worse one than Trump.

His friend snickered and asked if I was stupid enough to like Biden. The two of them fed each other's comments then about Biden being old, feeble, incompetent, etc. Another customer said that Trump is a criminal and will go to prison. The patronizing Trumpist said, very smugly, with absolute certainty, "Biden will be shot."

In retrospect, I realize that my mask triggered those guys. To them, it meant that I was a liberal so they wanted to pick an argument (which is why I realized later that I should have just ignored them).

They clearly believed two things. One is that Trump will be avenged by someone who kills Biden. The other was that they felt like they had "won" a self-instigated argument by resorting to a default solution of guns and shooting.

They left after the shooting comment. Then the store clerk and other customers commented on how much they hated Trump and all the harm he's done.

So now it's ME that's edgy in public because of veiled threats and deliberately provoked arguments that promote guns and political assassination as the solution to everything. In the future, if I respond at all to such provocation, it will be with a very bored dismissal of "Whatever."