The news of the terrible shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several others in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday added a new shocking dimension to the already tumultuous American political calculus. Whether left or right, Democrat or Republican, an unfortunate truth was demonstrated — in a society where political rhetoric often purports to be absolute truth and demonizes its opposition, American politics look more and more like 17th century religion. It is not that the other side is wrong, it’s that they are evil. It isn’t that their philosophy is different, it’s that they have some insidious hidden agenda. Gone are the days when senators and members of congress of different parties sat and had drinks late into the night debating and, yes, often bargaining some policy idea or another. Now it’s them versus us and us versus them.
Add to this political acrimony some often laughably lax gun laws and there you have it, the perfect recipe for a deluded maniac to kill or maim over a dozen people on a Saturday morning.
Don’t think for a second that I’m saying this guy is just crazy or that he is somehow less responsible. He killed six people (including a nine-year-old girl) and deserves to spend the rest of his miserable life somewhere cold and dark. Yet I can’t help but wonder what made this possible.
As more and more information comes to light regarding the twisted life of Jared Lee Loughner, it appears that this guy was just waiting to crack. His online anti-government tirades now appear to have been a key motivator for his cowardly and sadistic attack. Many of his community college classmates thought he was “creepy.” After posting a video on YouTube declaring that the college was engaging in illegal activity for removing him from a class for “outbursts,” he was suspended. Police went to his house, giving notice that he couldn’t return to school unless he underwent a psychological assessment. Loughner was also refused entrance to the military. It seems that this young man was “at odds with the world,” as his former classmates described him, and just about everyone could see it.
Every society has nuts. No question about it. But this, somehow, felt different. This seemed almost inevitable. It really wasn’t surprising. You’ve got Sarah Palin issuing a “hit list” (her words, not mine) and telling her supporters to “reload” (again her words) and putting target crosshairs on election maps (one was focused on Gabrielle Giffords’s district by the way) on her Facebook page. I would never argue for the censoring of political discourse, but with freedom of speech there must come at least some responsibility, right?
Now I know what you’re thinking — did I just blame Sarah Palin and gun laws for this heinous crime? No, of course not. This was a deranged maniac who was out to kill people, pure and simple. But deranged killers have a harder time hurting people in large numbers without vitriolic rhetoric to justify their crimes or automatic weapons with which to commit them.
Couple this with a society that will sell guns to just about anyone with a pulse. Yes, even after questions arose in September about Jared Loughner’s mental health, he was still legally sold a gun two months later.
I couldn’t help but think of another somewhat similar tragedy. In December 1989, Marc Lepine shot 28 people, killing 14 women at École Polytechnique in Montreal. Lepine didn’t need an acrimonious national politic to justify his murders — in his insanity, he believed that he was fighting feminism. And like Loughner, he bought his gun legally.
After the massacre at Montreal, Canada cracked down on guns. The federal government passed the Firearms Act, requiring background checks, licensing and registration of guns in Canada.
Am I naively suggesting that Canada is some gun-free haven, exempt from the violence of crazy people like Jared Lee Loughner because of gun control? No way. But does gun control make it more difficult for the Lepines and Loughners of this world to hurt large numbers of people quickly? Yes it does.
There will always be crazy people like Jared Lee Loughner out there, but inflaming them with irresponsible and unproductive us versus them, good versus evil rhetoric and making it easy for them to buy guns is no way to protect American citizens. I for one wish that I could turn on the TV and hear one American politician call for more gun control the way that they are all calling for more “kindness” in politics — maybe six people wouldn’t have died on Saturday.