Today some disaffected, paranoid, deranged man shot up a "Congress at the Corner" event at a shopping mall in Tucson, Arizona. Six people died, including a child and a federal judge and a dozen people were wounded. Chief among the injuries was a Democratic Congresswoman. Right now it is not clear whether she will live, or if she does, how much of her previous life she will recover.
It is not unheard of for the mentally ill or delusional to give action to the craziness in their heads by taking a shot at public figures. Sadly, over the past twenty years or so it has become even more common for shooters to be unsatisfied with one victim and coldly take out whoever is within range.
I believe people who vandalize property do so because they are disconnected from the community somehow. They do not feel any ownership in that which they are destroying. They cannot imagine a public commons that includes them. The destruction is, instead "fun, or a payback to the community they feel no part of, I think. Sociologists may have a better handle on it than I do, but I remain convinced in the absence of a feeling of sharing and common ownership, vandalism will persist.
So, what about this young man who dispatched half a dozen humans who woke up today with no thought of dread and simply wanted to go do the public's business in an open accessible way? What little information that has trickled out about him depicts an angry person who in addition to his delusions, also felt betrayed and set upon by his government. Life and circumstances had led this guy to a truth that most of us fortunately do not share. But is this simply the vandal problem writ large?
It is in the same family, perhaps, but this guy had help getting there. First, he wasn't paying attention in school to understand how government works (and doesn't work.). Second, he ended up feeling powerless in the system of government that he lives in. Talking heads and political bloggers gave shape to his disaffection and pointed him to the source of his problems, and, what's more, pointed them out with apocalyptic hyperbole and truth shading. His political opponents were dehumanized, demonized and painted with targets. With the inability to discern matters critically, it seems he was the inevitable product of our time.
I noticed how everyone involved in the law enforcement aspect of cleaning up this mess were being cautious and mindful of the importance of the business in which they were involved. Everything said was of the barest factual nature. The horror of the times is, when something this horrific happens, we are always left waiting for the second jet to crash in the the second World Trade Center tower. We imagine there are other gunmen ready to go out in a blaze of gunfire.
Our democratic republic was a good idea and, as crazily the wheels on the system are wobbling, it still is. Somehow, though, we have to do more to make the system work better for the disaffected. Let them worry about little green men from outer space as their chief threat. Let us do the heroic work to rebuild our system of government so that the disaffected will not see it and the men and women who serve it as targets to be destroyed.
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