GUN RIGHTS, FREE SPEECH COLLIDE

By H. N. Burdett

Poignant and heart-wrenching as the aftermath of the Tucson tragedy has been -- six people killed, including a nine-year-old girl and a respected federal judge, the targeted congresswoman appearing headed for a miraculous recovery -- those holding out hope that a new Era of Good Feeling is now on the horizon qualify among the more cockeyed of all optimists.

When offensive racist remarks are uttered over the airwaves, the political correctness police swoop down and pull the plug from the offender's microphone. But the Limbaughs, Olbermanns, Becks and Maddows earn a comfortable living reinforcing partisanship with generous helpings of vitriol under the aegis of their First Amendment right cum duty.

Rather than serving to soften the tone and turning down the volume on this perpetual blame game, the Arizona massacre threatens to incite the wing nuts, right and left, to rev up their engines.

Liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman attributes alleged gunman Jared Loughner's shooting spree to inflammatory comments by Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, the Tea Party and opponents of health care reform among others.

Conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer counters: "Rarely in American political discourse has there been a charge so reckless, so scurrilous, and so unsupported by evidence."

Just as Krugman, a Nobel laureate economist, deserves attention when he pontificates on taxation and budget matters, so too should comments by Krauthammer, a psychiatrist as well as a Pulitzer Prize columnist, be taken seriously on the reportedly disturbed alleged gunman.

"Not only is there no evidence that Loughren was impelled to violence by any of those upon which Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, the New York Times, the Tucson sheriff and other rabid partisans are fixated," Krauthammer asserted, "there is no evidence that he was responding to anything, political or otherwise, outside of his own head."

Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks accused liberals who point the finger of blame at right-wing vitriol purveyors for the Arizona shootings of "political opportunism."

Brooks and Krugman were eloquently answered in a Times letter to the editor written by Edward Abrahams of Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania: "While liberal columnists like Paul Krugman. . .emphasize the current political environment that they contend encourages outrage and violence, oonservatives, like David Brooks, point out that the suspect is mentally ill and answers mainly to the voices in his own head. Both offer interpretations that confirm their and their readers' worldview. Is it not possible that they are both right?"

In another letter to the Times, Howard Jay Meyer of Brooklyn, identifying himself as a Republican who believes in tougher gun laws and favors the right to bear arms but not for "deranged individuals," wrote: "The National Rifle Association is making it difficult for mayors across the country to crack down on illegal handguns. When any attack occurs, it's used as a reason for everyone to go out and buy a gun.

"I don't believe that sanity can prevail when it's easier to pull out a Glock 19 than it is to pull a lever on a voting machine. . .The death of another child changes things a bit, don't you think?"

Back to Krauthammer, who referred to the Wall Street Journal report of Loughner's high school classmates claiming that the alleged gunman's ravings were interspersed with "unnerving, long stupors of silence" during which he would "stare fixedly at his buddies." Krauthammer said Loughner's writings are confused, incoherent, punctuated with private numerology and inscrutable taxonomy: "He warns of government brainwashing and thought control through 'grammar.' He was obsessed with 'conscious dreaming,' a fairly good synonym for hallucination.

"This is not political behavior. These are the signs of clinical thought disorder when disconnected from each other, incoherent, delusional, detached from reality."

Krauthammer takes strong umbrage at liberal criticism of warlike metaphors used by Sarah Palin and others inciting violence. Such metaphors are rampant in describing politics, he observed. To illustrate, he mentioned a 2000 fundraiser in Philadelphia where Barack Obama said, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."

The columnist noted that fighting and warfare are "the most routine political metaphors. . .Historically speaking, all democratic politics is sublimation of the ancient route to power by military conquest. That's why the language persists. That's why we say without any self-consciousness such things as 'battleground' states or 'targeting' opponents. Indeed, the very word for an electoral contest --'campaign' -- is an appropriation from warfare."

Washington Post op-ed columnist Ruth Marcus observed that Loughner's Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol with an outsized magazine enabled him to get off 31 shots before reloading. A ban on manufacture of magazines of more than 10 rounds expired in 2004 and were it still in effect, Marcus said, "it would not stop crazed gunmen from inflicting damage, but it might limit the damage they could inflict."

John Velleco, spokesman for Gun Owners of America which Marcus said "manages the astonishing feat of making the NRA look reasonable," counters with: "If the government can ban magazines with 10 or more rounds, it can ban a magazine that holds five or more rounds. There is no way to stop the arbitrariness of that sort of legislation."

American Prospect magazine editor Harold Meyerson gets to the heart of the language of hate by recalling Glenn Beck's musing on his radio show last October about the prospect of government seizing his children if he refused to allow them to be given the flu vaccine. "You want to take my kids because of that?" Beck said. "Meet Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson."

Meyerson further recalled that last April CNN commentator Erick Erickson questioned the legality of the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey: "We have become, or are becoming, enslaved by our government. . .I dare 'em to try to throw me in jail. I dare 'em to. [I'll] pull out my wife's shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door."

The case Meyerson makes against right-wing paranoia seems ironclad. Has the government ever taken kids from anyone because of parents' failure to have them immunized? Has the government ever thrown anyone in jail for failure to comply with the census?

But here is Larry Pratt, executive director of the Gun Owners of America, at a rally in Washington last April: "We're in a war. The other side knows they are at war because they started it. They are coming for our freedom, for our money, for our kids, for our property. They are coming for everything because they are a bunch of socialists." And, of course, we all need to be armed to the teeth in order to fight back.

In yet another letter to the New York Times, Chris Librie of Racine, Wisconsin, wrote that all societies have mentally unstable citizens, "and yet the United States has a high rate of these killing sprees: Columbine, Fort Hood and Virginia Tech come to mind. These mass killings do not happen with such frequency in any other developed country. There must be unique contributing factors beyond the mere presence of mentally ill members in American society."

Librie said he could think of at least three such factors: "The easy,unfettered access to guns; the difficulty of obtaining health care for the mentally ill; the toxic and inflammatory political rhetoric in this country."

Citizen Librie laments that "it is easier to purchase a semiautomatic handgun than to operate a car in the United States." He further emphasizes the irony that the strong support of Loughner's targeted victim, Rep. Gabrielle Gifford, for the law to provide health care for more Americans like Loughner has inspired vitriolic opposition.

"All societies have their share of Loughners," Librie wrote, "but only the United States has the unique environment and lack of support systems that cause them to act out at a higher rate and with such devastating consequences."

While it may sound like the proverbial broken record, it is a self-evident truth that all rights carry with them responsibilities and all responsibilities have consequences. The Tucson shootings reflect a virtual collision of Americans' rights to free speech and to bear arms. Every society indeed does have its share of disturbed individuals, but few are endowed with the rights granted to citizens of the United States. It probably will be of little comfort to the friends and families of those killed in the Arizona massacre, but they were indeed part of the tragic price that is sometimes paid for the privilege of living in a free society.