There are 3 threads running from the Giffords shooting incident:

–the rhetoric of hate needs to be toned down

–Arizona’s gun laws are crazy

–and we didn’t have any effective way to sort the crazies and keep them from being inspired by the hate rhetoric to buy a semi-automatic weapon.

What’s interesting is there are lots of people defending the inflammatory rhetoric and pointing out there is probably not a direct cause and effect relationship between venomous commentators like Glenn Beck and Jared Loughner.

Maybe. Maybe not. We’re likely to get the answer to that issue one of these days.

There’s also a lot of people arguing that guns didn’t kill 6 people and seriously wound Congresswoman Giffords and 13 others…it was a crazy person.

And then there’s a lot of information coming out about how weirded out Loughner appeared and how there is virtually nothing anyone could have done to get him into a treatment program or deny him the right to buy a gun.

Whenever someone goes on a rampage and shoots a lot of people it is easy to write off the incident to a deranged person. Arguably anyone who commits murder, especially mass murder, is crazy.

But that is a convenient way to deflect the much broader responsibilities the entire society has.

Whether or not the bile being spread by left or right had anything directly to do with the Giffords shooting….bile is still bile and we need to tone down the political debate in this country. Just because we don’t agree with each other doesn’t make one side a bunch of traitors and the other side a bunch of fascists. We all love our country, and all sides have meritorious issues to consider.

I personally do not like the fact that the whole culture of violence and hate speech is making big money for the media outlets that purvey it. We can hold someone accountable for yelling fire in a theater, and we can stop people from broadcasting pornography to our kids At minimum the media outlets that provide the soapboxes for the hate-mongers can issue some civil guidelines and fire some flamethrower mouths. And we sure as heck can boycott the sponsors who buy ads in shows that incite hatred.

Creating a climate of violence and justification to demonize this or that group of people has repeatedly proven dangerous for a long long time.

As to the gun issue…Arizona has put gun rights ahead of human rights. I’ve got to wonder what the folks who wrote the Second Amendment would think if they saw the kind of weaponry gun rights advocates claim everyone can carry anywhere at any time.

I think some hard lines need to be drawn between the sort of recreational and home protection guns most everyone does agree we have a right to keep versus semi-automatic Glock 19s with 31 shot magazines.

Let me add another dimension to the gun rights debate….the Second Amendment refers to a “well regulated militia”.

I would suggest that a second tier of gun permitting be created whereby some folks would be allowed access to more military and police type weaponry….but only if they went through serious training and were part of a supervised militia structure that was like our auxiliary police forces. Not some wacko self-proclaimed Minutemen…but a force that could work effectively in tandem with law enforcement and increase safety and security without a political agenda.  What bothers me is having a lot of people armed to the teeth that really don’t know what to do how and when.

 The third thread is how do we figure out who is crazy and how to we keep them from buying guns.

I would hope the Second Amendment crowd could at least agree we do not want criminals or crazies having access to guns.

The first issue is basic permitting….and this is essential to at least weed out the criminals buying guns on the black market versus legitimate sales. The best thing a permit program can do is give  law enforcement a basis to bust someone with a weapon who does not have a permit.

Now comes the really thorny problem of trying to keep guns out of the hands of crazies.

Who decides who is crazy? What is the definition of “mentally ill”?

There is a long and sordid history around the world of governments using mental illness as an excuse to jail political dissidents. In a right-wing dictatorship it is the lefties that are “crazy” and in a left-wing dictatorship it is the right-wing packed off to insane asylums.

We have tilted the scale in our country to protection of the rights of the mentally ill.

Just suggesting someone is “crazy” is grounds to be sued {1}

 But we do not have an effective system of getting people who need help into the “system” for treatment, our “treatment” systems are heavy with drugs and warehousing and do little to help people function in society, and our ability to intervene in situations where someone is acting in such a way that they might be a potential threat is broken.

We need to figure out a fair and just way to intervene when people really need some help without the intervention system being abused by folks who want to lock up people they don’t like or disagree with. A tough problem, indeed.

But we’re a smart country and ought to be able to set up a system where a guy like Loughner can’t walk into a gun shop and buy a Glock 19 with extended ammo clips.

The problem is multi -faceted and there isn’t a clear simple solution. Real problems are like that.

If there is blame…it is widespread throughout our culture. There is no one simple point of fault.

What we can do is try and tone down the inflammatory rhetoric a bit and treat those we disagree with respect.

What we can do is take a hard look at who gets to carry around what kind of firepower on our streets, in our stores and in our public places.

What we can do is a lot better job of  identifying people like Jared Loughner and getting them the help they need before they act out their delusions.

As Pogo said “we have met the enemy and he is us.”

[1} I once defended a publication in a libel case over a published statement that the person was “crazy”.  Truth is a defense and we won.