It’s also hilarious that the same Minnesotans who call an I.C.E. agent a murderer when he fires his gun at a speeding car he thinks is aimed at his body are treating the equivalent of a squirt gun ambush as “an attack.”

Hypothetical: If Omar had a pistol and a man carrying a syringe rushed her, would she be justified in shooting him?

Absolutely! Just as if he aimed a gun at her that later turned out to be a gag weapon that shot out a “Bang!” flag. Or when Bill Murray is shot dead in “Zombieland” when he pretends to be a zombie. But after the facts are known, the reality of the assailant’s intent and the lack of harm inflicted should temper the “victim’s” rhetoric as well as the public sympathy sent her way.

De minimis non curat lex is a Latin motto that means, “The law does not concern itself with trifles.” I regard the “attack” on Rep. Omar as not quite a trifle, but right on the cusp. In law school, no professor discussing the principle is ever to resist reciting a naughty limerick that has been passed on for close to a century:

A clever young lawyer named Rex
Possessed atrophied organs of sex.
When charged with exposure
Rex said with composure
“De minimis non curat lex!”