Walter Shapiro raises some good points.
The acidic anger corroding our political system is premised on the belief that elected officials in Washington are arrogantly out of touch. But what will happen when representatives and senators begin to believe that they are risking their lives by appearing in public to answer voter questions? The inevitable result will be new barriers (portable metal detectors, omnipresent security guards) standing between the political elites and the governed.
Equally troubling will be the psychological effects on House members themselves as Congress gives way to the inevitable security mania. Although there is no way of proving it, I have long nurtured the belief that living inside a protective bubble exaggerates the self-importance of public officials. If everyone must be screened and frisked before being allowed to see a freshman congressman, it is easy to imagine how this legislator might soon believe that he is entitled to perks worthy of the court of Louis XIV.
I’m not very concerned about the latter point even though I think he’s probably right. But it is a concern that the massacre in Arizona will lead to new security measures on the campaign trail. I think we’ll be okay unless there is a second shooting. If this goes from being an incident to being a war, then all bets are off. It’s going to take a lot of restraint for people not to overreact and wind up making things worse than they have to be.
In the short-term, the GOP has postponed its idiotic health care repeal vote. Maybe now they realize that it’s just a dumb stunt to make people dangerously angry with the government.
The promotion of guns is at the heart of this. As guns are considered a solution to a problem, as the government is considered the enemy, as the chanting of “the tree of liberty must be watered” is heard, the toxic climate is getting more and more rank. The availability of guns, the promotion of guns, makes it all very close at hand. Especially in AZ.
15 years ago, I attended my sister’s wedding in Phoenix. I have 2 sisters who live there. The guy filming the wedding was carrying a gun on his waist. He was drinking straight JB.
What was the point of wearing a gun, in broad daylight, while drinking straight whiskey at a wedding in a nice part of town? The gun wacks are basically insane. There was no reason for the gun except stupidity. Nothing could happen with that gun except bad things.
The gun culture is an evil presence in this country. In this case, the gun culture and its handmaiden, the culture of gun appurtenances, is the reason that the massacre was so bad. One person with one gun wounded 14 and killed 6. That’s 20 rounds. I would expect that 10 more didn’t hit anyone. 20-30 shots from a single gun without reloading.
In VA Tech, the lunatic there had two guns bought at a gun show without a background check. He was carrying and using 5-6 quick-change magazines.
Why are quick-change large-capacity magazines legal?
It’s gotten worse, too. I saw a chart on Andrew Sullivan of how things over the past decade have changed, and the opinion that “free ownership of guns is more important than controlling guns” went from in the 30 percents to the upper 40 percents.
I don’t pretend to understand this country’s gun fetish, but banning shit isn’t going to fix it, either. I don’t know how you go about changing the fixation, but bans are only as good as the culture.
How to fix it: Focus on the ACCESS to guns (gun show loophole), the GUN ACCESSORIES (high-capacity quick-change magazines), and PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY.
Yes, gun politics are hard. But how many massacres must occur before someone says ENOUGH!
The point is NOT bans of GUNS, but GUN STUFF THAT MAKE MASSACRES EASY AND POSSIBLE.
Why are quick-change high-capacity magazines legal? There is NOTHING whatsoever about the 2nd amendment that says “Quick-change high-capacity magazines which are ideal to kill a lot of people really fast shall not be denied to keep us ready to repel the British invasion”. I’ve looked at the constitution, and these words ARE NOT there.
The rest of the world realises that the problem is availability of guns themselves. That’s why most countries ban private ownership of guns or severely restrict their ownership and use.
The logical extension of your argument that gun accessories like extended magazines are the problem, not guns themselves, is that it would be quite OK for someone like this madman to get hold of a one-shot pistol and only be able to shoot one person.
I’m sure you don’t believe that, dataguy. 🙂
Let’s wager a guess: it’s because national gun policy is decided by an organization that grew out of the KKK & white supremacists are all drama queens.
I’d like to see a statement on the postponement. Since when does reality impact theatre so directly?
In any case, compared to the media drumbeat– media being the family/community surrogate, not the government — the additional irritation by Congress is probably negligable. They’re just riding the tiger.
Considering the addage about riding the tiger, institutional paranoia is a logical result.
‘Course, these little adjustments will do absolutely nothing to address a thoroughly violent culture, either.
Today, the Speaker of the House said that the shooting won’t stop the work of the House or something very close to that. I wish he’d make up his mind.
I really don’t want to hear from the usual pundits on this. They are part of the problem
Yesterday there was speculation that someone else was shooting at the shooter. I’d expect in a parking lot in AZ that someone else was “carrying” and may have actually hit some of the bystanders. No mention of this again in the press. So perhaps I’m wrong about it, but it’s a troubling thought that there was a shootout at the Supermarket Corral!
Also, there is a differentiation I make between policy arguments and personal attacks. Our politic discourse these days is not about strongly held political positions that are argued (rationally or irrationally)… but instead is a politics of personal vilification. This is the part that has to stop.
In addition, the notion that all government is evil, which is what I guess formed the basis of this young man’s fractured thinking (and I think he easily could have been sliding into a diagnosable state of mental breakdown), is just too simplistic a meme to continue to be propounded by responsible legislators, pundits, and cable and radio talk shows. Besides being an insult to people’s intelligence (for both listener and speaker), it too often leads directly to the notion of simplistic solutions.
Likewise, the causes of this tragic event are not simplistic either. The left says “gun laws.” The right says “crazy guy.” The answers, if ever known, will be speculative and complex.
Per TPM, Police looking for second person of interest in Arizona shootings
They have a photo of the person they are looking for but will not disclose the location from which the photo was taken.
Latest is
I always thought Chris Rock had the solution. Guns can be cheap but ammunition costs $500/bullet. Somebody wants to shoot you, they’ll have to save up for it.
Bringing new meaning to the phrase “class war.”
The mythology of the gun culture tries to recapture the spirit of the Old West when “men were men and women were scarce” (or seen and not heard). And it was a white man’s country in which Yankees and Confederates had joined in the conquering of the West.
There is a reason that the progressive reformers of the last century set out to civilize the West, starting with the saloons. And the rules about guns in town.
This whole cultural phenomenon speaks of radical reactionary white male insecurity. In the last century, it took the farmers and labor movement to snap the country out of it. Raising the “dignity of the working man”. It’s hard to imagine how that could be framed today, given the propensities of educated progressives. But it is worth thinking about. For example, Norman Rockwell’s paintings and Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” did not come out of a reactionary environment but a progressive one. To win the culture war you have to transform the culture.