N.C. Congressman Heath Shuler, D-11th, plays a prominent role in this Politico story about death threats against lawmakers:
“I voted for you,? the caller said in a voice mail to Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler?s district office. ?If you vote for that stimulus package, I?m gonna kill you. Simple as that.?
The FBI says the caller was a 70-year-old resident of Shuler?s North Carolina district with a history of mental illness and a cache of guns. In the weeks before calling Shuler?s office, the FBI says, the caller beat and choked his wife. She told the FBI that she?d tried to clear her home of guns ? and that she went to bed at night with a can of mace tucked under her pillow.
When agents showed up at the man?s door, they asked him why he?d threatened to kill Shuler.
?I was trying to work the political scene,? he said.
SNIP
FBI agents arrested the North Carolina man who threatened Shuler, and prosecutors charged him with threatening to kill a federal official ? a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Court records show that the case was dropped after he was found incompetent to stand trial.
Shuler says he was shaken ? and that he has taken precautions to protect himself and his family. Family members have altered their daily routines to be more security conscious, and Shuler said that he and his wife have obtained concealed-weapons permits.
?You get a threat like that, and you start to rethink your priorities,? Shuler said.
I’m all for taking death threats seriously, and I don’t question the particular details in Shuler’s case, but they can be used as a political ploy. Rep. Brad Miller, D-13th, did it last year.
It also presents another opportunity for the Left to associate these verifiable psychopaths with the Tea Party movement and mainstream conservatism. All the while they ignore death threats against Republican lawmakers, because, as everyone knows, the Left never uses violence to further its cause … except when it does.
