Hell, even if we go back to what could be considered the first shot in Kansas, it's even stupider than that.
You want to know what the first shot of Bleeding Kansas was? Two guys getting in a drunken bar fight. It wasnt started over their ideals. It wasnt started over religion. They had had previous beef with each other over a territorial dispute, they bumped into each other in a bar, and a fight broke out that saw one shoot the other.
It just so happens that the shooter was a leader in a local Pro-Slave-State militia, while the victim was a member of a Pro-Free-State militia. And it just so happened the local sheriff was Slave-State, so he just arrested the leader of the local Free-State militia and trumped up charges to execute him for the "murder". At which point the local militia broke him out of jail and it turned into a stand-off that was only broken up after the Territorial Governor sent in the cavalry to break it up.
Even then, while the Slave-Staters fired the first shot, it was the Free-Staters who escalated, specifically John Brown. Since his response to the 1st Sacking of Lawrence (which left much of the town destroyed but managed to only have one person die), and the attempts to deescalate after it, was to go and brutally massacre several Slave-Staters in their homes, execution style while ranting out biblical verses.
Which caused the Slave-Staters to escalate with their own retribution attacks, which caused the Free-Staters to launch retribution, and oh look, now we have Bleeding Kansas, and both the North and South believe the slavery issue is now a matter of literal life and death.
EDIT: Of course, on the other hand, its also worth remembering even before the first shot, the Slave-Staters had used vast intimidation and corruption to run a rigged election to try and force being a Slave-State. But that one was at least met with condemnation by all but the most openly partisan because it was a bit too obvious what they were doing.
Hell, even if we go back to what could be considered the first shot in Kansas, it's even stupider than that.
You want to know what the first shot of Bleeding Kansas was? Two guys getting in a drunken bar fight. It wasnt started over their ideals. It wasnt started over religion. They had had previous beef with each other over a territorial dispute, they bumped into each other in a bar, and a fight broke out that saw one shoot the other.
It just so happens that the shooter was a leader in a local Pro-Slave-State militia, while the victim was a member of a Pro-Free-State militia. And it just so happened the local sheriff was Slave-State, so he just arrested the leader of the local Free-State militia and trumped up charges to execute him for the "murder". At which point the local militia broke him out of jail and it turned into a stand-off that was only broken up after the Territorial Governor sent in the cavalry to break it up.
Even then, while the Slave-Staters fired the first shot, it was the Free-Staters who escalated, specifically John Brown. Since his response to the 1st Sacking of Lawrence (which left much of the town destroyed but managed to only have one person die), and the attempts to deescalate after it, was to go and brutally massacre several Slave-Staters in their homes, execution style while ranting out biblical verses.
Which caused the Slave-Staters to escalate with their own retribution attacks, which caused the Free-Staters to launch retribution, and oh look, now we have Bleeding Kansas, and both the North and South believe the slavery issue is now a matter of literal life and death.
EDIT: Of course, on the other hand, its also worth remembering even before the first shot, the Slave-Staters had used vast intimidation and corruption to run a rigged election to try and force being a Slave-State. But that one was at least met with condemnation by all but the most openly partisan because it was a bit too obvious what they were doing.