Florida GOP office hit in drive by shooting, no injuries or deaths.

The damage to the GOP office. NBC News. 

A Florida GOP office has been attacked in a drive by shooting which thankfully resulted in no casualties. AP. Four shots were fired at the Republican Executive Committe of Volusia County. The attack occurred near Daytona Beach and the office was empty at the time. Police are still investigating the attack and speculate that the motive was vandalism. 

No one was hurt. At least 4 bullets went through the windows pic.twitter.com/34a6MEthJR

— Mike Springer WFTV (@mspringerwftv) October 29, 2018

My Comment:
Compare the coverage this incident is getting to the fake bomb attacks that occurred last week. Those were and are still headline news with hours and hours of coverage. This attack? I had to search for it after seeing it on twitter this morning. A few news outlets, like Fox News, the Associated Press and the Washington Post covered it but not to the extent the bomb threats got. Part of that is of course the fact that the targets in the bomb hoax were famous and powerful while this attack is targeting a county level office, but that doesn't mean that this incident shouldn't get some coverage. There is bias at work here.

Calling this attack vandalism is fairly dishonest. A brick through the window or someone spray painting something on the walls would be vandalism. This feels more like someone throwing a Molotov cocktail into a building. The main goal might be property destruction but the chance of someone getting injured or hurt is a lot higher in both an arson attack and a shooting like this. This kind of attack is inherently more threatening than typical vandalism.

I also don't know if the attacker realized that the office was empty. If he or she thought that the office was occupied at the time then this attack is elevated from vandalism to attempted murder. Given that the attack happened at night when the office was closed it's probably pretty likely that the attacker did realize that the office was empty. That means that I feel this attack is a bit more serious than vandalism but not as bad as attempted murder.

The main goal in this attack seems to be pretty much the same as the fake bomb threats against various Democrats that ended in the arrest of a man. It's no coincidence that this happened right before the 2018 midterms. The goal in both attacks is to silence people on the other side through threats and intimidation.

I do think that this attack is a lot more intimidating, not that the bomb attacks weren't. The bomb attacks never even had a chance to hurt someone. The bombs couldn't have exploded unless the victims were stupid enough to get a lighter and detonate the bombs themselves. This attack could have very easily killed someone even by accident. Plus, with the suspect still not caught there is a chance that a follow up attack could happen that could kill or injure someone.

The good news is that I expect things to calm down a bit after the midterms. Right now that election is bringing out all the crazies on both sides and once that election is decided I am hoping that we won't see anymore political attacks in the short term. But unfortunately the division and hysteria in the media that is fueling this conflict will probably ramp up again in 2020...