STARTLING – AT 8:33 A.M. ET:  Here is a piece of startling information that has escaped much notice during the current "discussion" over whether conservative talk radio had anything whatever to do with the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona:

Conservative talk radio, which at times does get a bit strident, often focuses its criticism on members of Congress.  You'd think, given that fact, that there would have been a number of attacks on those members, if talk radio had the potency attributed to it by its critics.  After all, this is a nation of 312 million people, and there are unstable folks in that huge population.

But the facts are dramatically different.  As USA Today reported:

House records indicate only a few assassination attempts against members of Congress: A duel between two House members in 1838, a brutal fistfight over slavery between two House members and a senator in 1856, an attack by Puerto Rican nationalists on Congress in 1954 and the ambush of a California congressman in 1978 while he was on an investigative trip to Guyana.

COMMENT:  The number of attacks is incredibly small throughout our history, despite the stereotype of America as a violent country.

If talk radio had the impact its critics say it has, the number of attacks on members of Congress wouldn't be one, it would be one hundred, or one thousand.  The proof that talk radio doesn't inspire our population to violence is in the numbers, which are, as we've noted, startling.

January 14, 2010