Article snippet: When I was 10 years old, whispers spread around my school in suburban Washington, D.C. -- there had been a shooting in the Capitol. The nuns tried to keep the news from us, since several of us were children of the men (and it was almost entirely men) who served there. Even then news spread, and we were terrified. We children of congressmen knew each other well, went to school together, played in each other’s houses. Our fathers represented opposing political parties and we would sometimes go at it in history classes, or during a campaign season. But that didn’t stop us from being fast friends. What a different time, in so many ways. After the 1954 shooting in the House chamber, security at the Capitol ramped up a little. But we “congressional brats” were still free to explore the many secrets of that magnificent building where we spent much of our childhoods. The Capitol Police force, so professional in their response on that ballfield in Virginia, was made up of amateurs, often college boys working their way through school thanks to a patronage position. There just didn’t seem to be any real danger, no fear that politics could kill. Our dads might disagree with each other, think the other fellow was wrong-headed but not evil. They respected each other (for the most part) and partisan differences didn’t stop many of them from forming close friendships. So, in addition to my outrage at the horror of an attack on men at play, presumably because of their polit... Link to the full article to read more