There's a reason society has made threatening to bodily harm someone a punishable crime: Even if a blow is never landed, sometimes living with the fear that it could come at any moment is worse.

Perceived threats are what motivated Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway) to seek law enforcement help over a dozen times since February 2013, as seen in a file obtained by the Arkansas Times from the Arkansas State Police under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (see a full summary of the file below). None of the information forwarded by Rapert has resulted in criminal charges, according to the State Police.

Several of the messages reported by Rapert are vulgar and disturbing, including an expletive-filled email from a person who says he wishes that Rapert's wife would be assaulted and that Rapert would "die in a fire"; a message that includes a snippet from an NBC News story about Serbian war atrocities with the postscript, "What I wish for you & your family"; and another note to Rapert's campaign page describing how the writer's uncle killed an annoying evangelical Christian in Vietnam by cutting off his head with a bayonet.

However, several of the incidents Rapert reported to law enforcement seem to be writers using ill-advised turns of phrase to relay hopes that his agenda would fail, including an October 2014 phone message in which a caller said: "I hope the power of the Constitution kicks your ass" and a June 2015 Facebook private message exchange in which a Jonesboro man told Rapert to be careful "or you may find yourself on the wrong end of the gun you are holding to the heads of the American people," before the argument escalated into the man inviting Rapert to engage in fisticuffs. Other incidents:[/div class]

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