Some thoughts on the Tucson shootings:
My original impulse on Saturday was to blame the shootings on a right-wing lunatic influenced by all the violent political rhetoric we’ve heard in the last few years. To ascribe such blame is not, despite what David Brooks might think, “political opportunism.” It’s a natural human reaction based on deductive reasoning: a Democratic congresswoman gets shot in the head — a congresswoman whose office windows were smashed in 2010, a congresswoman who held a constituent event in 2009 to which one of the constituents brought a gun — and it takes place in a political environment in which Sharron Angle talks about resorting to “Second Amendment remedies” and the need to “take Harry Reid out,” in which a certain Alaskan celebrity says, “Don’t retreat… reload!” and puts out a map with targets on certain congressional districts, in which a new Republican congressman’s chief of staff says, “If ballots don’t work, bullets will,” and in which a guy flies an airplane into an IRS building. What else are we supposed to think but that this was done by a right-wing lunatic?
And yet — we were wrong. Loughner isn’t a right-winger but a truly mentally ill human being. While my instinct is to feel hatred for him, I also find myself wondering abut the nature of mental illness. How much is someone’s mental illness a part of one’s self? Do we blame Jared Loughner for these crimes, or do we blame Jared Loughner’s mental illness? Centuries ago, mental illness was seen as a form of possession by some evil or alien entity. If we could somehow remove the illness from his brain, would Loughner take the stand, or would his mental illness take the stand? It’s probably beside the point, because no matter what, Loughner belongs in confinement. Whether that confinement is conceived as punishment or as a way to prevent him from causing anyone else harm is a secondary question.
But the fact that Loughner is mentally ill does not excuse political exhortations to violence. Such exhortations are, in and of themselves, despicable and unacceptable. We don’t live in the nineteenth century, when Preston Brooks attacked Charles Sumner and some members of Congress carried guns. This is 2011. We long ago learned to settle our political debates without violence. We, as human beings, are supposed to know better today. Or so I had thought.
And as long as I live, I will never understand our nation’s gun culture. I can sort of understand why some people want to carry around pistols for personal protection from robbery or rape, regardless of whether I think it’s a good idea. But can’t we all agree that nobody should be able to buy a 30-round clip at a Sportsman’s Warehouse? When it comes to guns, our country is insane.
Sometimes I just find myself throwing my hands up in the air.
While i certainly think rhetoric such as Palin’s played a pivotal role in edging the JaredL’s into lethal action, this incident probably speaks more loudly about the state of our health care system and gun control safeguards.
In the last few years Arizona has relaxed gun laws- it is now alright to carry them concealed, in bars, in restaurants. Jake Harper is now promoting a bill to allow them to be carried on college campuses.
Some people are saying that the more people are armed, the less likely these sort of massacres will take place. I cannot remember a single time when one of these massacres was stopped by another civilian shooting the killer. Also, the Tucson incident lasted less than thirty seconds. Thirty seconds to kill or wound 20 people. Sometimes I hate living in Arizona.