About Tucson

Two of my close friends live in Tucson. It's a good thing they weren't grocery shopping at the Safeway this past Saturday morning. Or gathering in a parking lot to meet their Congresswoman. What happened to Gabrielle Giffords and her innocent constituents won't dissuade most people from their entrenched positions on gun control. (Now it's being referred to as "gun safety," lest we rankle those who see any reduction in the amount of proliferating killing machines as robbing us of our rights.) In the wake of the tragedy the media poses the same questions that arise every time a deranged nutcase goes on a killing spree: With all the warning signs, how did this happen?

We can be sure, whenever a crazed psycho pulls out an automatic and mows down as many as a dozen people in one clip, that the hallowed second amendment will be invoked. Politicians, including the President, are not about to challenge its sanctity to so many American gun owners. Instead we'll engage in attempts to make sense of a "senseless" atrocity, while dancing around the fact that our nation leads the world in senseless deaths as the result of easy access to guns. The few in Congress who moved this week to legislate limits on assault weapons and/or the ammunition that accompanies them, (e.g., a magazine that makes it possible to fire up to thirty shots without reloading) will likely get no traction, thanks to the most powerful lobby in Washington, the National Rifle Association. Our society lives in a state of denial on this contentious subject. People are so afraid of losing their constitutional right to bear arms, they seem to accept atrocities such as the Tucson shootings as the price that goes along with keeping it.

Our track record on handling mental illness is equally dismal. Those who knew Jared Lee Loughner thought he was "creepy" and clearly disturbed. He got kicked out of the community college he attended for classroom disruptions and bizarre behavior. Neighbors of the Loughners were wary of the family in general and Jared in particular. It's always after the fact that people who were familiar with the killer tell the media they had a gut instinct that something like this could happen. Had any one of these concerned people reported their suspicions, anonymously, to an agency equipped to intervene, perhaps the latest carnage could have been averted.

The Tucson Tragedy will become just another in a long list of shooting massacres. Whether it's an army base, a school campus, post office, beer plant or grocery store parking lot, we all react with shock and despair, then go on as before. Until another dozen or so human beings get shot by a lone slayer, at which point we'll talk about it again. The conversation will fade away and nothing substantive will change. And so goes the scenario in perpetuity.