When it comes to guns, insanity prevails
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
By Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

After what happened Saturday, everyone senses the truth whether we publicly acknowledge it or not.

As a nation, we've reached a terrible impasse in our politics, where the sharp edge of free speech and the remorseless logic of every citizen's right to bear arms are locked in an embrace of mutually assured dysfunction.

According to witnesses, Jared Loughner, a 22-year-old resident of Tucson, Ariz., shot 20 of his fellow Americans, killing six and wounding 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Democrat who represents his district.

In several Internet posts wedged between screeds about "illiterates" and currency not backed by gold, the suspect obsessed over the connection between a person's words and the ability to construct reality.

To attempt to follow his argument is to fall head-long into a rabbit hole of nonsensical gibberish. Still, Mr. Loughner did not resort to metaphors or similes during the rampage.

When internal logic fails, there's nothing like a Glock 9 and a case of depraved indifference to get one's message across to the political class. You don't have to make a political contribution or a coherent argument to be heard. Once again, guns are American democracy's great leveler.

According to those who know her, Ms. Giffords, a gun-owner and self-described "pretty good shot," would not want to see Second Amendment rights curtailed in the wake of her attempted assassination.

Ms. Giffords was much more concerned about the violent rhetoric and hateful jeremiads that permeate Arizona's airwaves and political theater.

Though she would be the first to give Arizona's lenient gun laws a pass, the push-back against the notion that Arizona's politics is uniquely intolerant began as soon as the initial shock wore off.

Questioning Arizona's shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later culture, or the vitriol created by extreme political rhetoric, is considered opportunistic by those with the most to lose.

People in the media who profit from fear don't want to see the gravy train end, even if it is destroying the country.

The only thing not considered off-limits is speculation about Mr. Loughner's mental state. Fair enough, but why is a man who was rejected by the U.S. military still able to legally buy a weapon that makes it possible to shoot 20 people in less than a minute before reloading?

"Guns don't kill people, individuals do," goes the mantra of those who insist that looking for a culprit beyond the madness of the individual shooter is beside the point.

We are also to believe that a mentally disturbed 22-year-old with access to one of the most lethal weapons on the market was not affected by violent rhetoric in the environment in which he lived. How likely is that?

Meanwhile, suppose the Constitution grants every American citizen a right to buy as many guns as his bank account allows -- shouldn't there still be limits on gun ownership by those with diminished mental capacity or evil intentions?

People like the accused gunman are a bigger threat to our system than the scariest zealot in al-Qaida.

Foreign terrorists can only hope to create havoc every blue moon, but there are disturbed and angry people in every community, occupying every point along the political spectrum, who have easy and legal access to guns.

Hardly a week goes by that we don't hear about their murderous handiwork at some office building, factory or school. It is only when these murderers turn their attention to politicians that media coverage jumps off the scale.

Still, there are millions of Americans, perhaps the majority, who would rather deal with the potential for mass shootings every day by our fellow Americans than tolerate limits on Second Amendment rights.

We consider it an essential part of our freedom, one that isn't reserved for the mentally stable. Few other democracies can boast of this right. They have a long way to go before they can match our body count.