A Leap of--What?

Two men died Saturday in Butler, PA. First, a bystander. The second, the 20-year-old assailant. Both, shot to death.

Does Thomas Crooks' age matter? No, not really. Not in a wider view of the event. Not historically most likely. Dead is dead, after all. But I did flinch when learning the would-be assassin's age.

Assassin. At 20? The word confounds my sensibility. He was a kid. 

How to make that leap, from kid to political assassin who might have rewritten--and maybe has--world history. 

Sure, I know the prowess of some trained shooters that age. Yes, Crooks was a shooting enthusiast they say. But that doesn't get me over the hurdle to understand him as a murderer.

Some say he was a loner, aloof, maybe a little odd. That characterization doesn't get me any closer to his thought process. To upon learning the site of the rally, to get into his mind such an idea, to scout the location, to secure a ladder, to practice his shooting a bit more, to purchase extra rounds--because he was perhaps a bit odd? I can't make that leap.

Reportedly he was smart, smart enough to do well in advanced classes. Smart. Smart? A planner, apparently. But--and this is the question that turns my stomach--did he know, believe, truly understand this undertaking to be suicidal.

Oh, Thomas.

Reports differ on the bullying question--some students say yes he was, school officials push back emphatically no he was not.

Bullied, e.g., politically assassination attempt. Bullied, assassin. Bullied, assassin. I don't know.

I just can't make the leap--just foolish, misguided, stupid even. And perhaps forever we are without any pointed information that reveals how this 20-year-old got to such a moment in his young life.

Two men dead. What the hell, Thomas. What a terrible, terrible shame.