A year after congressional shooting, 'all of us are here'

A year has passed since we learned a guy from Belleville opened fire on Republican congressmen practicing for a charity baseball game in Alexandria, Va.

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis was at home plate. His story of survival is riveting, as well as sobering.

What is especially striking is he now has a great affinity with those students in Florida and Texas who in the past year joined the ranks of those living a normal day until someone decided they had a point to make with a gun.

Davis distinguishes his nightmares and the sights and sounds that take him back to that day from what those children experience. He feels for them, because they do not have an adult's perspective or experience to handle the flashbacks and ongoing damage.

Davis said he thinks political discourse has improved, but not enough.

"I had hoped for more in the last year in moving forward, in getting the hate and vitriol out of politics and the political debate," Davis said.

The Belleville shooter was a left-wing activist living in his vehicle when he asked a year ago today whether Republicans or Democrats were on the field. He opened fire, and one of the outfielders that day heard him yelling "health care!"

He wounded four people.

Davis said he was nauseated when he learned where the shooter was from. He was asked that day what he would say to the shooter.

"I'd tell him that he didn't succeed. Because all of us are here," Davis said. "And there's a warm place in hell for somebody like you who did what you did today."

There's the solace, that the extremists usually lose. That the pen is truly mightier than the sword.

This story was originally published June 13, 2018 at 3:37 PM with the headline "A year after congressional shooting, 'all of us are here'."