Were you surprised by another assassination attempt?

I was sitting under a pavilion at a local brewery in South County the other day listening to some good music and an old-time song by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was being sung by a local band.

Mary Jane’s Last Dance was an old favorite of mine that I’ve listened to many times. ‘This song was first released as part of Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits album in 1993. It rose to No. 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Are you familiar with it?

The song was very popular back in the day, with some rather strange lyrics.

A worker at the brewery approached me and asked if I had heard the presidential candidate Donald Trump was shot at a campaign stop in nearby Pennsylvania.

It was unknown at the time as to the seriousness of the shooting and status of Trump’s injuries.

Wow, I thought! I still remembered the assassination of John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, in Parkland Health, Dallas, Texas, while I was a student at Boonsboro High School. Lee Harvey Oswald was the alleged shooter who was later shot by Jack Ruby as he was being escorted under law enforcement supervision. Remember?

Other shootings soon flushed through my mind; President Reagan was shot on March 30, 1981, by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C.; George Wallace, a candidate for president, was shot five times on May 15, 1972, at a Laurel shopping center by 21-year-old Arthur Bremer; Wallace was paralyzed from the waist down.

As I listened to " Mary Jane’s last dance" under the pavilion, I was reminded of a line in that song:

"Tired of screwing up, tired of going down, tired of myself, tired of this town."

Was Trump’s assailant " tired of himself ?" What was his end game? Death?

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I was trying to imagine that thinking of an individual pulling that trigger of an AR 15 on a roof while aiming it at a live target; some reports suggest he fired eight rounds before being terminated.

Did you ever wonder what must go through the mind of one intending to shoot or kill a political figure in office or campaigning out on the election circuit?

Earliest reports suggest that the gunman in this most recent incident on Donald’s Trump life was allegedly a 20-year-old male on a rooftop with an AR 15 weapon.  A recent graduate of high school and junior college.

All the major law enforcement agencies continue to collect as much data as possible.

What was the shooter’s motive?

I wondered again; was he “ tired of screwing up, tired of going down, tired of himself or tired of this town ?”

What would make a young man want to climb a roof with an AR 15 and take eight shots at a popular political figure to inflict bodily harm and/or death with a dangerous weapon? Would he even care about missing the target and killing other innocent victims?

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Would he be of sound mind who could reason between right thinking and wrong behavior? Or was he mentally ill or merely politically violent?

Where would a 20-year-old get an AR 15? Are they too easily accessible? Where did he learn to operate, shoot and aim a weapon of that caliber?

Were there any alarms or factors available to others around the assailant in regard to his plan? Was the death of innocents a factor in his planning? Did he really care?

What was his motive? What inflamed him to do what he did; the young man was shot dead by a government sniper before he could answer any questions.

A report will be finalized in regard to his actions and this incident; factors will be studied for a long time; fingers will be pointed as to why the incident occurred, and a popular political figured would escape death by the thinnest of margins.

Was the harsh, aggressive and violent political rhetoric of this year’s election a "causative" factor in this most recent assault? Did political rhetoric stoke the election flames?

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There are many questions to be asked; there is much evidence to be found; and there will also be a review of the security provided at this political event and mistakes made.

Could this incident have been prevented will be another question for review.

Could the heated rhetoric of political parties really be a reason to "stoke the embers " of potential rage to kill another human?

Many questions remain to be asked.

Many answers will be elusive; some avoided.

Does the future look any better in preventing these assassination incidents?

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Life really hasn’t improved that much since Cain and Abel, has it? Hate still rules.

What’s next? Maybe more hate.

Pete Waters is a Sharpsburg resident who writes for The Herald-Mail.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Were you surprised by another assassination attempt?