Brown: We must fill the hole in our hearts with sweet resolve, not bitterness

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Last Saturday, a gunman allegedly assassinated a prominent Minnesota leader in her Brooklyn Park home, killing her husband and fatally injuring their dog as well. Earlier that morning, the man shot and badly wounded a senator and his wife, according to charges. In his vehicle, he carried a detailed plan for a killing spree cut short by the timely and relentless intervention of peace officers.

And yet, already, the aftermath of this tragedy reveals why it happened in the first place. Online influencers made concerted efforts to twist the facts of the still-developing case. Social media denizens displayed a near-pathological urge to deflect blame from the extremist ideologies that fed the killer’s mindset.

In this, even a tragedy that everyone agrees was horrible again begins to divide us. We walk on eggshells, hoping not to offend online screamers who can’t give an inch in their ideological warfare.

This was an American mass shooting, like countless others before, but different because the shooter chose specific targets in an attack not only symbolic, but destructive to civilization itself.

Yes, civilization.

We live in a democracy, which he sought to mutilate. We live under a system of law and order, which he subverted. Now, whenever we see police lights illuminate our darkened bedrooms, doubt replaces trust. How much future suffering will result from this crime? How many lives will it cost?

Some already argue that mental illness caused last Saturday’s shootings. While the specifics of this claim have yet to be explored, we must not brush away our shared responsibility so easily. Mental illness does not force anyone to methodically plan and execute mass murder.

This was an illness, perhaps, but not one isolated to an individual mind. Rather, we are experiencing a social disease that elevates violent rhetoric, mocks decency and civility, and worships power above all else. Like a vile parasite, this malady embeds itself in the otherwise reasonable minds of decent people.

The carnage we just witnessed, the families destroyed, will one day be recorded in history, and history is painfully unsentimental. Instead of remembering Melissa and Mark Hortman, noble souls among the best of us, history will say something like this:

On June 14, 2025, a gunman assassinated a prominent Minnesota lawmaker as part of a plot to kill several legislators and others aligned with the Democratic Party and liberal causes.

This sentence will fall within a larger paragraph about the escalation of political violence and the decline of civility of this moment.

We know not the outcome of this passage in history. We’re living it. Either we succumb to worse strife, or we mark this as a turning point for the better. But make no mistake. The wages of cruelty and violence are more of the same. The convenience and comfort of misinformation are the killers of truth. There is no sickness like soul-sickness. It’s the curable disease that takes not just life but hope itself.

We see, in so many examples just this year, how our online selves are not as separate from our real selves as we think. When the soul-sickness spills over, the consequence are real. You can only fantasize about civil strife for so long before your self-fulfilling prophecy comes true.

We are all born with a hole in our hearts. We may fill this hole with anything we please. Pride, fear, booze or guns. Perhaps the grace of God, family and community.

The shootings and chaos in Minnesota last weekend, the assassination of Melissa Hortman, someone I knew, turned the hole in my heart into a sucking chest wound. I know I’m not alone.

After the shock wore off, my heart filled with rage. But now, it is mostly fear for what might come next. As Thomas Paine said at the dawn of our nation, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

I grew up in a home with guns. Lots of guns. My father owned a literal armory of handguns and semi-automatic rifles, including an outbuilding full of six-foot gun lockers and ammunition.

My dad is a skilled gunsmith and, perhaps not surprisingly, a proponent of the Second Amendment. And there’s nothing wrong with either of those things.

And yet, I know this. During the years when alcohol, depression and strife filled our home, the guns my dad stockpiled failed to solve our problems. Snowmobiles, drugs or Pokémon trading cards would have fared no better.

In the years since, my dad still collects and works on guns, but not quite so many. The political disagreements we had when I was a teenager have mellowed into shared understanding, and far more agreement that either of us thought possible years ago.

We filled the hole in our hearts with respect, love and shared experience. It’s not so hard to do once you start.

Indeed, as we consider the gaping hole in our hearts today, we must remember that we can fill it with anything. But here’s the deal: If we don’t fill it with something good, we will hurt people, starting with ourselves.