Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed

Darned right she was shot.

She was in a mob attacking Members of Congress. What did she expect would happen?

This isn't Uvalde, where the police just sat there.  

Ashli Babbitt was shot in the act of breaking through a broken window of a barricaded door. She was trying to enter the Speakers Lobby of the House chamber, where members of the House of Representatives were sheltered. People in the mob were using flag poles as pikes. Police had been warned that pipe bombs were found outside the Capitol. They had been alerted that many people might be carrying concealed weapons. There was a noose displayed outside the Capitol. It was a noisy melee. They were shouting their intent, to stop Congress from carrying out its work. Police warned the crowd breaking down the door to stop. Babbitt did not stop. She was moving forward when she was shot. The police did their job. Others around her are lucky they were not shot as well.

Angry mob, breaking down the door

Donald Trump tweeted a defense of her:

It isn't just Trump who thinks this way.  Apparently a significant number of Republican officeholders agree. 

I don't understand this. I don't think I am being cruel. In what world could I expect to break into a government building--or for that matter any secure private place--that is protected by locked doors and armed guards and not expect to be shot and killed?  Imagine breaking into a bank and being confronted by armed guards. Their job is to stop me.

If I were part of a mob, demanding to get onto an airplane parked at the gate to attack the passengers, and were I confronted with armed guards from the TSA, shouldn't I fully expect to encounter lethal force if I were attempting to crawl through an opening the mob battered into the airplane door?

Today, in Medford, both the Jackson County Justice Building, with courtrooms for the state court system, and the Federal Courthouse with a Magistrate Judge, have armed security. The risk of a mob shouting chants of violence against the judges is low. Still, officers with guns protect them. 

At the bank, the airplane, and the courthouses, lives would be at risk if mobs broke through and attacked people, but the American republic itself would not be at risk. But at the U.S. Capitol both lives and our system of government were threatened.

I have written about norms. Laws protect our freedoms and system of government, but so do norms and expectations. Mike Pence did not use the role of Vice President to throw out electoral votes. The idea was unthinkable--as well as not lawful. Trump told state legislatures they could simply ignore the vote and cast the state's electoral votes as they wished. It seemed crazy because there is a norm that legislatures not ignore election results. As I wrote three days ago, the norm that people file an honest tax return is an essential part of our system of taxation. The House majority vote to reduce IRS auditors and call them Gestapo sends a message that the norm is that returns should not be audited. 

So I will take this opportunity to place a stake in the ground for the norms when people are destroying public buildings. It is wrong, whoever does it. There is a difference between peaceful protest and violent acts. Anarchists who throw rocks and set fires are doing something criminal and morally wrong. They should be stopped. Whether in Brazil or the U.S. Capitol, people who vandalize and threaten people should be stopped, by armed police and by deadly force if necessary. 

Some of my critics say that I am "just a liberal" or "really just a Democrat." So let me say, as a liberal and a Democrat, that the norm we stand for is that it is wrong to vandalize public buildings and wrong to invade the Capitol to stop the transition of office. Armed security has an obligation to protect the people and functions that take place in those buildings.

Darned right she was shot.

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