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I don’t want to come off as lacking empathy, even though I do indeed lack empathy.

The assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is reassuring. Not because he deserved to die. Certainly he didn’t. And not because it’s cool to make a political statement by murdering someone. It isn’t. But there are so many random, meaningless killings in urban America these days, it’s nice to know that occasionally there are still murders with meaning.

I’m not saying the meaning was good. I’m just saying, at least it was intentional. The newspapers are filled daily with stories of a brilliant neurosurgeon or a pregnant mom or a WWII vet randomly shot in the head because Daquan saw a white and was like, “Man, fuck that cracka walkin’ around all breathin’ an’ shit” or Ignacio the Guatemalan thought it would be muy interesante to fire a gun into a crowd because he’s a dreamer or Crackwanda the homeless woman pushed a dad in front of a subway car because the octopus-woodpecker demon that lives in her socks said, “Do it and you’ll win a Grammy.”

What was Obama’s favorite term? “Senseless violence.”

Yep, so much so that when violence makes sense, it’s refreshing.

It’s a principle leftists rarely grasp, when black advocates decry the negative image of blacks as criminally inclined, when those advocates say, “Why you scared of blacks? Italian mafiosi killed people too, but you don’t cross the street when you see a wop,” what they don’t get is that, sure, Mafia killings were bad, but they were rarely random. Random violence is what people find disconcerting. Right or wrong, there’s comfort in the belief that the victims “brought it on themselves.” When violence “makes sense,” that doesn’t make it good, but it does make it less distressing.

Rick Moranis walking through Manhattan gets punched in the face by DeQuandrius who was just looking to punch a white guy, any white guy, that sends a visceral shiver down the spine because it could’ve been you or me. If, on the other hand, Moranis had been decked by a comedy fan screaming, “Bob and Doug McKenzie were never funny,” we’d take solace. It was targeted; we’re safe.

“Sense-full” violence has a long history of being celebrated in movies. Antiheroes. Tony Soprano, hit men with a heart, edgy Deadpool-type superheroes. As long as the violence makes sense, as long as it’s not random, audiences are okay with it. The Abominable Dr. Phibes is widely considered to be Vincent Price’s best film. If you’re a horror fan, you’ll know it. If not, here’s the story: A theologian’s wife dies on the operating table, so the grieving husband kills the entire surgical team, one by one, in sadistic, painful ways based on the biblical plagues of Egypt (boils, hail, locusts, death of the firstborn).

The murderous widower is the hero of the film. At no point does the screenplay suggest that the doctors and nurses were incompetent. They tried to save the wife’s life. And the entire movie is us, the audience, enjoying seeing health-care professionals killed.

To be clear, it’s a really well-made film. But it only works because the murderer has a mission. You could not get a similar movie from LaQuixnious Jackshun randomly raping and murdering a white chick in a crime of opportunity.

Just give the killer a motive and you can excuse the most grotesque violence.

The killing of Thompson reminds me of the case of Judge Joan Lefkow. The wise Hebraic justice had ruled against neo-Nazi Matthew Hale in, of all things, a trademark/copyright dispute. Matthew Hale ran the openly murderous Church of the Creator, a white supremacy org that spawned several mass shooters. But what took him down was a trademark dispute.

That alone makes the story funny, and I haven’t even gotten to the really funny part yet.

Oh, and look up Cranston v. Hitler. In 1939 Hitler initiated a copyright lawsuit against future U.S. senator Alan Cranston. Yes, Hitler himself went to court over a copyright issue. Which is so fucking hilarious, the image of Hitler walking into a courtroom with a briefcase to enforce “mein kopyright,” and in fact Hitler won, which is the button on the gag. But in Matthew Hale’s case, he lost. And when he lost, being a good Nazi handed a defeat by a female Jew judge, he—what else?—began plotting the judge’s assassination.

Which bought him forty years in the federal pen.

Mere months after sieg-Hale was sentenced, Judge Lefkow’s family was massacred.

You didn’t have to be Columbo to put zwei und zwei together. Violent neo-Nazi loses trademark lawsuit via a Jewish judge. Violent neo-Nazi threatens Jewish judge. Violent neo-Nazi plots to kill Jewish judge. Violent neo-Nazi is sentenced to forty years for plotting to kill Jewish judge. Jewish judge’s family is executed.

Open-and-shut, right? Following the murder of Judge Lefkow’s family, every media org ran lengthy stories about how the culprits had to be neo-Nazis acting on Hale’s orders. Journalists expressed zero doubt. Because doubt would be silly, what with it being so open-and-shut and all.

But sonofabitch, you know what? As obvious as it was that the neo-Nazi who was imprisoned for planning the judge’s killing was the one behind the killing of the judge’s family, it wasn’t him. While everyone was obsessed with “Nazi vs. Jewish judge,” lurking in the shadows was Bartilomiej Ciszewski, a disfigured Polack who lived in the U.S. under the name Bart Allen Ross. Ciszewski had sued his health-care provider, claiming that their subpar treatment caused his disfigurement. And indeed, the bastard was one ugly fuck. Mouth cancer led to the removal of Ciszewski’s lower jaw and tongue. And I gotta confess…maybe I’ve been at this job too long because I’m not even sure which is the best nickname for the freak, “Yecch Walesa” or “Lick Walesa” (because his tongue was removed).

I need a vacation; I can’t even distinguish good puns from bad anymore.

But anyway, Judge Lefkow had ruled against him in his lawsuit. A minor lawsuit. Not Hitler vs. Cranston; a Polish nobody got cancer, sued his health-care provider, and lost.

I have no doubt that the moment Judge Lefkow banged her gavel to end Ciszewski’s case, she forgot about him.

But he didn’t forget about her. As she made headlines battling neo-Nazis, this small man, this jawless nonentity, brooded. Plotted. And he murdered her husband and mother. As detectives closed in on Ciszewski via DNA and firearm evidence, Mr. Kill-basa committed suicide, after sending a TV news station a letter confessing to, and defending, his actions.

Damnedest thing, isn’t it? The neo-Nazi was the obvious suspect, but the real killer was a forgotten loser who felt he’d been wronged in a health-care case no one cared about. Matthew Hale had followers; Ciszewski had nobody. Just his own pain and loneliness.

Thompson’s assassination is a reminder that while we fear random violence, as we should, we always have to keep in mind that nonrandom violence exists, and it’s not romantic or cool or something to cheer in a movie, and you never know what everyday, workaday thing you’ll do today or tomorrow that might trigger an unstable individual to engage in targeted violence.

I’d go so far as to argue that the plague of random violence unleashed by Soros DAs and open borders over the past decade, the Daquans and Ignacios who kill for no reason, has caused us to drop our guard against pinpointed violence. The less-than-negative reactions to Thompson’s murder suggest that some of us find “meaningful” violence fun.

It’s a terrible reaction, but one born of a people plagued by Daquans who’ll slaughter a white couple on a date because why not?

Be aware of random crime on a city street. Also, be aware that you might be somebody’s nonrandom target. I’m saying this as a guy whose words in 1993 attracted the attentions of a serial killer. I didn’t intend my words to do that, but as I age, I increasingly take the “butterfly effect” into consideration.

There’s something anticlimactic about random crime. LaMeniss fires a gun in anger and nails a 3-year-old kid in the head, and at trial he’s like, “I’ze sorry yo’ honor, I wish I hadn’t dun it.” And he’s likely telling the truth. LaMeniss scares us because there’s no logic to his actions. But we also need to be scared by the guys who do have logic, albeit their own insulated, detached logic.

I’ll end with this: When my dysfunctional relationship ex of five years, model-actress (now celebrated “mommy blogger” with major corporate sponsors) Rosie Maxhimer (née Tisch) outed me in 2013, when she, after five years of being financially supported by me and outdoing me in the “right-wing extremism” department, figuratively ended my life, she took a chance. You do something that life-altering to someone, you’re rolling the dice. Women have been socked on the jaw for far less (I’m not advocating that, just stating an unfortunate fact). But Rosie believed me to be a man incapable of physical violence. And indeed, in 56 years I’ve never physically harmed man nor beast. But at the same time, she didn’t foresee that my mother would become terminal with Alzheimer’s and I’d need money and I wouldn’t have money thanks to Rosie bankrupting me, and you never know how that kind of stress, that kind of sadness, that kind of desperation, might change a man. Or unlock something deep, dark, and previously unseen.

Rosie got lucky. Even with my alcoholism, even with my grief, I don’t have violence in me. She gambled and won. But to quote Miller’s Crossing, “Nobody knows anybody—not that well.” She took a very serious risk.

And then, a hospital killed my mom. And a different hospital would end up killing my dad. And no, it had nothing to do with insurance; it was dancing nurses malpracticing. But we have to view these things in context. People are imperfect, systems are imperfect. In 1992 my friend/actress/bimbo Stephanie Togrul (the petite blonde enthusiastically clapping for me in the audience during my Montel Williams Show appearance), a nurse in the cardiac ward at Cedars Sinai (the hospital that would kill my dad three decades later), would regale me with stories of how many times she almost accidentally overdosed patients.

She’s now a 4’11” champion bodybuilder.

Jesus, I’ve known some oddballs in my life.

The point is, keep perspective. People are flawed. We all are. Movies make vengeance seem cool. But you know what’s really cool? Sanity and impulse control. Also, give hugs not drugs.

At the same time, always be aware that something you do could, theoretically, send an unstable person on a path of vengeance.

It’s just the world we live in.

The majority of murder victims are dispatched by people they knew. Odds are that if you’re murdered you’ll be murdered by somebody you once felt comfortable yelling at, dismissing, or ridiculing.

Hell of a thing, huh?

And never forget it.