Investigators are still examining possible motives for the killing of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband, and the shooting of another legislator and his wife. In a press conference on Monday, Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson described the rampage as a “rare” political assassination. Much of the public discourse has focused on whether the suspect, Vance Luther Boelter, is from the political right or the political left. But people close to Boelter have said he did not discuss politics. Instead, some scholars who focus on the far right and anti-abortion violence say it may be more insightful to examine Boelter’s religious background and views on abortion. Among the evidence that investigators are examining are notebooks belonging to Boelter containing detailed notes on dozens of other presumed targets that included Democratic public officials and abortion rights supporters. Scholars say it is reasonable to consider the rampage in Minnesota within the well-established pattern of anti-abortion violence that has taken place over many decades in the U.S., and its ties to conservative Evangelical Christian movements. “They … have this idea that you, as devout Christians, need to do something to stop [abortion] — not just to oppose it, but to eliminate it,” said Carol Mason, chair of the humanities at the University of Kentucky. “And this goes back to a kind of ‘leaderless resistance’ that the militia movement named in the late ’80s, and that the anti-abortion movement has practiced for a long time.”
via npr: Questions remain about the Minnesota rampage. Anti-abortion extremism may shed light