Photo/Illutration Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is helped off the stage by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Standing in front of a mirror, a young man mumbles: “You talking to me?”

With a sneer, he repeats the question four more times and then practices quick-drawing his gun.

This is an iconic scene from the 1976 U.S. film “Taxi Driver.”

Travis Bickle, the protagonist played by Robert De Niro, is a Vietnam veteran who schemes to assassinate a high-profile U.S. senator. The movie’s portrayal of Bickle’s loneliness and madness is said to have influenced many young people of the time.

Five years later, in 1981, then-President Ronald Reagan narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. The perpetrator was a hardcore fan of “Taxi Driver.”

The word “equalizer,” which is defined as “something that makes things or people equal,” has also been used to describe guns in the United States. Anyone can point a gun at anyone and that is the dark reality of the gun society that is America.

Guns have been used repeatedly against politicians and others. There is no end to the tragedy.

Former President Donald Trump was injured during a campaign rally this past weekend. The motivation for this attempted assassination is still unknown, but I believe this incident is bound to affect the presidential race.

There is a photo of Trump pumping his fist under the stars and stripes flag flapping against the blue sky.

I worry about the harm that has been done to democracy. Unbelievable as it still is, a mob actually led an assault on the U.S. Capitol Building three years ago. And let us not forget that Trump’s inflammatory words and actions definitely contributed to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968, famously said: “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.”

These words really hit home.

While America grapples with the darkness of its own state of disarray, how much will that shake up the rest of the world?

This is most lamentable.

—The Asahi Shimbun, July 15

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.