In America, of late, it has become incredibly important for many people to ASAP know if the mass shooter or assassin was left or right, so they can beat their chest, or vent rage, or whatever, for people they don’t know. But they want answers, and they want them to be perfectly in black or white.

What we get instead is very mixed messages, with the killers not especially ideological. We get a man with a trans lover writing “you are gay if you read this” on the bullet casing. Trump’s attempted assassin was in a Republican household, and gave a whopping $15 to some Democratic cause. Someone who attacks a Mormon church has a pro-Trump sign on their fence.

America is, I think, unique, in that we know which political party people are registered with, as public record. Everywhere else tries their best to keep who you vote for secret. I cannot see how such public knowledge is in the public good. As in, I could easily be fooling people with my registration, and still vote for the other side in a federal election.

The real reason, it would seem, is money. Third parties seeking political donations want contact details so they can beg for money. Which means making it public. Quite sickening, really. The extra reason is primaries. In countries like Australia, the local party body chooses who runs for office, rarely with the input of all party members. We can change parties if we don’t like who they pick. Meanwhile the US is obsessed with elections, from high school, to sheriffs, to DAs… It is everywhere, all the time.

With someone sowing so much hate and division as Trump, we need to reduce the ammo. No more public records of political affiliation.

And, we need to start a new trend. 50 years ago we called such killers psychos, nutjobs, unhinged and so on. They still are. Let’s call them anything other than left or right, because their political ideology is nothing more than a lens, at best, to focus their madness through. And not the cause.