When a single gunman took aim Wednesday at Republican members of Congress during their practice for a charity baseball game, the shooter did something that 300 million Americans have not been able to for a year, if not more: bring political partisans in Washington and around the country to remember what we have that connects us.

The shooter won’t be named in this editorial, but he had become politically radical in the latest cycle of American politics, throwing his lot in with Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and posting an increasingly hostile stream of posts against President Donald Trump. To say his actions were terrorism misses the mark. He was looking for assassination, not to sway or scare the population.

Unfortunately, Colorado has seen this sort of activity before. On Nov. 27, 2015, a man from Park County attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs with the intent of assassinating those whose activities he disagreed with.

Read more at The Loveland Reporter-Herald.