Somehow we have to put this loathsome, tragic shooting in Arizona into context. It appears that the suspect, Jared Loughner, was more deranged than ideological. While the strident, take-no-prisoners, hateful political rhetoric that has been dominating our political discourse for the last two years has become alarming, it likely didn’t directly motivate Loughner. He was no Tea Party acolyte.
But what certainly enabled Loughner was this: As a psychopathic time bomb with an increasingly ominous track record, he was able to go into a local sporting goods store and buy a semi-automatic 9 mm Glock to go. He was legal: he was at least 18. Plus, the 22-year-old bought a number of high-capacity magazines.
He passed a cursory background check by filling out an ATF form and checking the “No” box related to ever having been “adjudicated mentally ill.” In other words, are you crazy? Yes or No? You don’t have to be sane to check “No.” And, of course, there was no waiting period.
Guns, as we are often reminded by the usual NRA suspects at times like this, don’t kill people. It’s people who kill people. The Founding Fathers would surely be proudly approving of the right to bear assault-weapon arms application.
As for guns in the hands of the certifiably disturbed being far more likely to kill people? To miss that self-evident reality is insane.
But this is not to totally exonerate political discourse that routinely devolves into incendiary rhetoric and candidates who are not inhibited from suggesting “Second Amendment remedies” and using cross-hairs logos. Theoretically, that can help create a climate where the deranged just might go literal.