''Our nation was founded on violence. The option is on the table. I don't think that we should ever remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms.'' —Tea Party-backed Texas GOP congressional candidate Stephen Broden
''I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. ... No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out.'' —Glenn Beck
''My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.'' —Ann Coulter
“The Girl Scouts allow homosexuals and atheists to join their ranks, and they have become a pro-abortion, feminist training corps. If the Girl Scouts of America can't get back to teaching real character, perhaps it will be time to look for our cookies elsewhere.'' —Hans Zeiger, Republican candidate for Congress in Washington state
''We need to execute people like (John Walker Lindh) in order to physically intimidate liberals.'' —Ann Coulter
I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us 'having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,' and the people -- we the people -- are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country." ~Michele Backmann
"Don’t retreat. Instead — reload!" —Sarah Palin
I’m not easily shocked by anything, but I have to say that I found these comments, especially when digested as a whole, shockingly violent—and advocating shocking violence.
Add to this the fact that Palin, on her “Take Back the 20” Facebook page (which she has declined to remove), has specifically targeted Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, using the crosshairs of a gun as her graphic. Message: Anyone who voted for the healthcare bill deserves to be shot and/or killed. These are appropriate targets for lethal vengeance.
Combine with the fact that Arizona has become one of the most thoroughly bigoted places in the country, with its legislation against immigrants designed to make the supermax prison industry wealthy and its banning of "ethnic" studies in schools.
Combine with the fact that Arizona has some of the country’s most lenient gun laws, including legal carry of concealed weapons, so you can indulge your Billy the Kid fantasy in any nursery school, playground, political rally, or house of worship you want. According to Bob Boze Bell, executive editor of True West, a magazine devoted to Old West history, even legendary Tombstone had stricter gun laws than Arizona has today. And ironically, one of AZ governor Jan Brewer's first orders of business was to pass a bill prohibiting property owners from banning weapons in parking lots. Those two little laws might just have changed things for Giffords and 17 others in that Safeway parking lot last Saturday. But hey, guns don’t kill people, do they?
Add to this the extreme levels of fear in the American population, induced by massive change and economic distress. Fear, because our TV and radio and gangsta rappers and films and newscasts and Web content have been telling us for years that the world is a violent place, that even if we live in suburban Arkansas, we're living in a war zone. Fear, which people tend to cover with anger/aggression/violence…and purchasing guns to tuck under their pillows at night.
As if that weren’t quite enough…. add to it the fact that Giffords, herself a long-time gun owner, was a vocal advocate of gun rights and an outspoken supporter of the Second Amendment. She herself owned a Glock—which implies no small investment in the topic, as these are some heavy-duty pieces, preferred by law-enforcement agents and Crips everywhere. Giffords once joyfully proclaimed, "We have a long tradition of gun ownership in the United States. ... It is a tradition which every law-abiding citizen should be able to enjoy."
And while we’re munching on those words, let’s make sure we combine that enjoyable tradition with utterly lax “background checks,” which probably don’t even reveal outstanding parking tickets, for those about to purchase a weapon. That way we’re all getting much more enjoyment, more bang for the buck, as it were.
And while the nation was noisily proclaiming its ostensible grief about this incident, which you think might have sedated even the gun-ho types just a little bit, sales of Glock pistols (specifically the Glock 19, used by Loughner) jumped by 60 percent in Arizona. As well as throughout the country. Why? Because hey, if Jared’s doing it, it’s gotta be cool?? Because "this is the revolution and I want a piece of it"?? Besides being a frightened bunch, we are truly a frightening bunch.
When we stir all these elements together, it becomes utterly unsurprising that a probably quite sensitive (perceptually, not emotionally) paranoid schizophrenic did his own calculations and drew a conclusion. While obviously not defending his behavior, I will say that Loughner was merely serving as the reaper for all we had sown. And reap he did.
Yet people seem surprised. How could such a terrible thing happen? Blah blah blah. When we ourselves stack all this kindling under the open flame of American wrath—white-hot these days—why are we shocked when the whole pile ignites? If we incite violence through our words, actions, legislation, and celebrity mouthpieces, we should be utterly unsurprised when violence erupts. I’m frankly puzzled that something like this never happened during George W. Bush’s two infuriating terms in office. I’m also amazed that the pile doesn’t catch fire more, given the number of mentally unstable people in the country, the degree of substance abuse, the emotional tenor of the times, the availability of devices that kill, and the great amount of tinder floating around everywhere—from the media to our Fundamentalist megachurches. We have created conditions for Loughner and hundreds more like him. You can’t tell me that at least a few of those folks who ran to Sportsman’s Warehouse for their pieces on January 14 weren’t acting out something inside them that echoed Loughner’s sentiments.
Let's get back to a very basic principle. Guns are designed to kill. They destroy human and animal life. That is what they're meant to do. And that is why people buy them. When you buy a gun, you are putting out the message, "I want to potentially take the lives of other beings on the planet. Killing is a morally acceptable option to me."
And another basic principle: As ever, context is everything. The Second Amendment was not enacted so that 21st-century posers could feel cool strutting around with their Glocks on their hips. This amendment was adopted in 1789, when our young country was threatened by Britain. Back then, because there was no established army, farmers needed to be able to form ad hoc militias. Thus the full wording of the amendment, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
I know this is asking a lot, but how might things look if we got current with all of this, both within the country and within ourselves? What if we all addressed our own fear, lost the John Wayne fantasy, and examined what lies beneath the American love affair with the gun-totin’ swagger? What if the firearm option were taken away tomorrow and we had to rethink our notions of personal protection? Might our heroes and our rhetoric begin to look different?
Would an Alaskan hillbilly running around shrieking “reload!” like a 10-year-old playing cowboys and Indians really seem like an appropriate leader for this country?
