The shooting in Arizona has been followed by the expected discussion about right-wing talk radio, Sarah Palin and her map with crosshairs on it and the like. I agree that we'd all benefit from an infusion of civility in our discourse, but what exactly is safe?
The threat of terrorism has caused us to implement all kinds of security measures which have slowed us down and lowered our quality of life. Commercial air travel is now a thoroughly unpleasant experience, but we put up with the inconveniences and embarrassments we wouldn't ordinarily tolerate because they make us safer -- or at least, makes us feel safer. But there always seems to be someone who figures out a way to get around our carefully crafted safeguards, and we have to tighten the cinch still further.
Maybe we can keep most bad guys off airplanes, but what are we going to do about speech? It's very easy to blame the cable channel whose politics you don't agree with or the Internet for rhetoric that seems to give permission to people to do outrageous things. But do we now have to water down what we say in the course of legitimate debate to avoid sending the lowest common denominator of nut case over the edge? Do we have to start tiptoeing around verbal eggshells?
The young man who shot up that Tucson parking lot clearly had a track record of mental instability, and he sent out plenty of signals ahead of time. Is there any way to intervene earlier and more forcefully with people like this, especially before they have access to guns? Talk about "Second Amendment solutions" -- maybe there should be a solution to the Second Amendment.
All I know is, I don't want to live in a world where I have to pass through a full-body scanner before going to see my congressional representative at a public meeting. If we start restricting access to gatherings like the one in Tucson, where is it going to end?
BTW, do you notice that after every one of these shootings, we go through the same struggle trying to make sense of it? Are we going around in big circles, or are we really learning something new, and acting on the information?
