In the summer of 2008, HWMBO and I spent six weeks on a cross-country driving tour from Maryland to California and back. Heading westward, we took a northern route via Montana in order to visit family and friends there and throughout the Pacific Northwest. We passed through Arizona on our return trip. We stopped for a night in Flagstaff from where we were able to visit the inexpressibly wondrous Grand Canyon National Park.
Both Flagstaff and Phoenix are to the north of Tucson, which has been much in the headlines since last Saturday afternoon. Then, a clearly deranged individual with a confused and incoherent view of the world and his own importance in it shot and killed six people among those gathered for an informal meeting. One of those victims was a beautiful nine-year-old girl. Today, a Congresswoman is still - amazingly - fighting for her life after being shot in the head. At least 13 others (some reports say 14) were wounded in the rampage. As with the overwhelming majority of those in my nation and around the world, I have been sick in mind and heart at the news of this latest atrocity, as indeed it is. Because of my own experiences there, I know that the majority of Arizonans, however they may be depicted elsewhere, are no more violence-prone than anyone else.
It is, however, true that lethal weapons such as the semi-automatic that was used to gun down these individuals in a matter of seconds are all too easily accessible in this country to dangerously irresponsible individuals like this young man. Unfortunately, as with too many topics these days, it seems that there is no way to have responsible or meaningful dialogue between those who argue that the Second Amendment grants unrestricted access and possession of such lethal weapons to anyone who wishes to obtain them and those who maintain that gun ownership, originally intended by the Second Amendment for times when informal state militias existed, should be restricted to those who demonstrate/have demonstrated that they can behave responsibly, and regulated accordingly. The rhetoric gets much too heated for meaningful light to shine through. Until it does, nuts with guns will continue to wreak havoc with the lives of innocents.
But heated, even hateful, rhetoric is not only a facet of the gun ownership argument. It has become all too pervasive and toxic throughout the spectrum of political dialogue, with radio, TV and political personalities or wanna-be personalities almost routinely calling for violence to be perpetrated against specific individuals or groups of individuals. After all, hate speech is good for ratings and finances comfortable, even luxuriously posh, lifestyles for these individuals. We all know who they are. They know who they are. Almost unbelievably however, some of these, rather than examining their consciences and vowing to raise the level of political discourse to more civilized levels, have designated themselves victims of this latest tragedy.
Make no mistake, just as the criminal acts here were directly perpetrated by one very deranged man - however inspired he may have been - the victims here are those whose lives were ended or forever altered by his criminal acts. Other victims include those whose lives have also been irretrievably altered because they lost loved ones or now must help their loved ones to heal. No one else. It is appallingly egocentric, even sociopathic, for any individual not so touched to maintain otherwise. It is appallingly irresponsible for any media outlet to give them free air time to make such cases.
Words have consequences. It is as simple - and as profound - as that. So long as there exist individuals who deliberately and viciously misuse their freedom of speech and expression just as this deranged individual deliberately and viciously misused his demonstrably lethal weapon, we are all at risk.
We all have frustrations and pent-up anger, especially in difficult and stressful economic times. It is actually healthy to release those frustrations, but in a manner calculated not to do harm to others. One of my own venting techniques is to imagine the great expanses of the wondrous Grand Canyon and to picture myself standing on one of its rims yelling and screaming until the poisonous ache is no longer there. The Canyon is so vast and has lasted for so many millennia that it helps to put our own transient concerns, no matter how all-consuming they may be, into perspective.
At a memorial ceremony for the victims of this tragedy, the President said, "At a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do -- it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds." Let us please agree to do exactly that.
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