Let The Shooting Begin

In the aftermath of the Loughner massacre in Tucson, much discussion is occurring in the public media about whether this kind of violence is being encouraged by prominent people (Tea Party spokespersons, TV and radio talk show hosts, etc.) making remarks about taking care of our problems with strong-arm, sometimes explicit violence-in-kind, responses.

Whether such inflammatory remarks come from the right or left, from conservatives or liberals, is not the issue. Desperate situations seem to invite desperate reflexes. The temptation is always strong to "fight back" in like manner, with the idea that only violence can match up to violence. If we can't "hit back" personally, we can talk big, hoping others will hit for us.

Yes, the Second Amendment of the Constitution seems to sanction individual initiative to shoot back when threatened, by allowing citizen possession of "arms." But note that this is an "amendment." The writers of the Constitution did not include it. Indeed, as James Madison explained in his Federalist Papers essay, he thought the additional assurances (that became the Bill of Rights amendments) were not necessary because the new Constitution was meant to establish a positive construction of democratic procedures upon which to build our national society and culture; the Constitution, as adopted before the amendments, left it for the states to deal with unstipulated details.

Not to diminish their importance, but the rights bolstered by the first ten amendments, and indeed most of the subsequent ones, deal with procedural matters, updating with details where further explication was felt needed for the times. The Bill of Rights is not a list of inalienable privileges; rather it is a short compendium of protective assurances, statements of protocol. If you think the right "to bear arms" is a God-given inalienable right, re-read the New Testament. The Second Amendment spoke to a fear of personal safety in a young nation pushing into a continental wilderness inhabited by tribal nations, and still harboring British troops. It was not set against a backdrop of fear of our own political system. The Constitution itself takes care of any sense of helplessness against internal political tyranny. In short, the colonial precedent of local citizen militia groups is an outdated recourse grasped today by people isolated in their self-perceived powerlessness or motivated by shady ambition. Even if Washington D.C. belt-way politics should elevate a party or a President into a position that forcefully tyrannizes citizens, our national track record shows that we know how to take care of it. As Tocqueville said, Americans are good at making retrievable mistakes. Panic is without honor in our virtuous constitutional system, despite an undercurrent of pull and tug.

To my mind, a "desperate" physical retaliatory response is always the worst, most ineffective solution. It might give the threatened person "time' to take a breath, but always makes matters worse in the long run. Indeed, you can not "fight" your way out of a deep hole. "Fighting" may gain you some foot space within the hole, but it only gives the enemy pause (maybe) to recoil. If you are actually in a desperate position (and "fear" is a blunt, seriously inadequate tool for measuring "situations"), you have already taken a hit. Fear only measures pain, it does not analyze sound data.

My model for this is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. At that point, he had already taken the hit, and he knew it. It was not fear that led him, in advance at the Last Supper, to tell Judas to go ahead and do what he intended to do. In the Garden, Peter felt desperate and lost his mind. Jesus knew his disciples probably had a chance to overpower a Roman arresting party, leaving him more room in his hole to fight on. But he acted sensibly and responsibly, and his disciples lived to tell about it. I am not saying this non-violent strategy will prevent the good guys from getting hurt. I am saying if we truly are in a "desperate" situation, we already have taken the "hit." The biological and/or psychological pain may be staunched by fighting back, but the crippling is only thereby delayed.

I heard that when Jared Loughner was tackled, one person who grabbed the dropped gun had the impulse to shoot Loughner and take care of him right now, but decided not to. Rare wisdom. I acknowledge that now we must endure a long, costly judicial process to get Loughner put away. But if the tackler had shot the assailant on the spot after he was subdued, the event would have been nothing more than a "shoot out."

I am not talking about shooting Loughner while he was still firing. I'm talking about embracing post-trauma violence rhetoric--Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly style. Do we want "desperate" situations decided by shoot outs? Puerile talk about "taking out" those who "scare us" is a first cousin to insanity.

Fortunately, Jesus was not easily "scared' by his tormentors, even when he understood the odds at Gethsemane. He knew he really did have the advantage overall. Heroes often die in the heroic moment, but if we do not have quality heroes, we are left with guides who shoot first and ask questions later. By quality heroes, I mean those who know of ways to escape from a hole without letting the challenging dueler choose our weapons, and escalating the problem into a shootout. The Loughner tackler who did not shoot the restrained killer on the spot was smart. The damage (20 victims) was already done. The moment for fear was over. If we remain at the level of desperation for determining decisions, we act as I heard many throughout the country reacted ---gun sales jumped the next day for the kind of semi-automatic assault weapon (Glock 19) Loughner used, apparently bought by people who wanted to get possession of an emotion quencher before Congress updates and stiffens gun control laws in the aftermath.

It appears that George Washington, who led our violent rebellion against Great Britain, had learned by the 1790s the lesson that I am promoting about the moral deficiency and long term ineffectiveness of violence as a tactic. In contradistinction to the mood of the country (a mood still looming today) that we should consolidate our blessed destiny--"win the West"--by intimidation, President Washington tried, abortively, to establish a policy of conciliation and honest negotiation with the Native Americans. And in his Farewell Address he admonished us to stay out of European affairs and alliances that would only drag us into foreign conflict and wars. This man knew something about violent frenzy.

My heroes are three--Apostle Peter's master; the Tucson man who threw himself on his fallen wife and absorbed the fatal shot; and the tackler who grabbed Loughner's gun but did not shoot back. Heroic actions may not always prevent immediate sacrifice of life or limb. But when the damage of violent attack is already done, or the "fear" of attack is shown to be a squint-eyed miscalculation, I prefer to count my advantages and jump more assuredly out of the "hole."

Yes, you say, but that is easy advice while sitting in your study philosophizing. You ask why I don't get out of my chair and get started attacking my immediate challenges for today? Well, I like to think that my three heroes acted as they did only because they had thought through these things and made their heroic decision from a well of understanding rather than a spring of emotion. There is a place for enneagram type five personalities. I'll be ready for when I am drafted into an emergencey, but for now I won't keep quiet.

Shall we let the shootout begin, just as in days of yore, when cowboys (and modern day Presidents) knew how to take care of problems?

Doug Good