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There are those who partisanship exceeds their patriotism and insist that the assault on the Capitol Jan 6, 2021, was really a protest or a riot. They are wrong and nothing they say in the matter of the nation’s governance should be given any weight.

A protest is a collective action to bring attention to a cause or event. Protests can and often do involve illegal actions, blocking freeways and the like. Illegality in protests should be dealt with in the courts, not overly harshly nor overly leniently but the illegal actions do not transform or alter the intent of the protest, to draw attention to a subject.

A riot is an emotional outburst that is shared by multiple individuals and is often contagious. Riots have no direct goals. While an event such as an unjustified death at the hands of authorities can ignite a riot the riot itself burns like an uncontrolled fire. They often spread beyond the inciting cause, causing property damage and too often person injury and death to individuals unassociated with the perceived injustice.

An assault is violence with a goal, a purpose, something to be achieved. An assault can be highly coordinated and planned such as the invasion of fortress Europe on D-Day or as disorganized and spontaneous as impulse mugging for cash. What is central is that there is a goal to be achieved and not a message to be conveyed or uncontrolled emotional burst.

The attack on the U.S. Capital Jan 6, 2021, was an assault with the purpose, the goal, of preventing the certification of the Presidential election and thereby preventing the peaceful transfer of power from the Former President to President-elect Biden. Placing quotations around insurrection is a lie.