It’s become a macabre American ritual: a violent attack against a political figure, followed by condemnations, calls for introspection and a vow to prevent it from happening again.

And then it does.

On Wednesday, the routine repeated itself. Charlie Kirk is dead, and the nation is again reckoning with the combustion of gun violence and toxic politics.

The shooter’s motive was unconfirmed Wednesday evening, but the act bore the hallmarks of a politically motivated killing — and people on both the left and right immediately treated it that way.

“Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence,” former Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords said in a statement shortly after Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative activist and close Trump ally, was shot in the neck in Utah.

Giffords herself was shot in the head by a gunman in 2011. In the 14 years since, attacks and threats against political figures have surged. Just three months ago, a masked gunman shot two Minnesota state lawmakers, killing one. Two months before that, an arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion while Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family slept inside.

It’s the second summer in a row that has been defined by political violence. Last year, in the heat of the presidential campaign, Trump was twice targeted by serious assassination attempts. On Wednesday, in a Florida courtroom 2,500 miles from where Kirk was killed, lawyers completed jury selection in the trial of one of Trump’s would-be assassins, Ryan Routh. Opening statements begin Thursday.

The split screen is a stark reminder of just how pervasive these acts have become. Giffords knows that as well as anyone. Since her miraculous recovery from her own shooting, she has issued the same unheeded calls to shun violent extremism. She spoke out after the Trump assassination attempts and after the Minnesota shooting. After a pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and after a shooter unleashed a hail of bullets at Republican members of Congress in 2017, nearly killing Rep. Steve Scalise.

Each time, she has pleaded with Americans to embrace their better nature and fight their political battles with words, not bullets. Each time, her plea has seemed further from fruition than before.

“This summer, America has seen multiple politically-motivated assassinations — first of a Democratic legislator, now of a Republican activist — because dangerous people turned to guns to express their disagreements,” Giffords said Wednesday. “Both parties have been targeted, and both parties share a moral and patriotic duty to take meaningful action to stop gun crime from claiming more lives.”

Virtually every public officeholder feels the new reality — not just elected politicians like Trump or Giffords, or activists like Kirk. Judges, too, have been besieged by death threats, “swatting” attacks and other harassment. Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the target of an attempted assassination in 2022. Earlier this year, some lower-court judges decried the harsh rhetoric that the White House has directed their way, saying the verbal attacks are stoking threats of physical violence. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has condemned the intimidating rhetoric, too.

The threats, and in some cases actual attacks, have become background noise in Washington — symptoms of a political moment marked by toxic tribalism and a deepening sense of distrust of government institutions.

Lawmakers, often on the receiving end of those threats, have described it as a new and increasingly dark normal. But even against that backdrop, Kirk’s murder landed with astonishing force in the shellshocked Capitol.

“There’s no excuse for political violence in our country,” Scalise, who nearly bled out on a baseball field from a gunman’s shot to his hip a decade ago, told reporters.

He added a familiar refrain: “It’s got to end.”