On the Radio: The God of Probability

A conversation with my daughter  about the Virginia Tech killings this week grew into an earlier blog entry and is now a radio commentary on KERA/NPR.  It aired this morning. Listen here if you like.

The Dark Side of Freedom

A few weeks ago I did an NPR/KERA radio commentary about free speech in wartime, pointing out that an open society will always be more vulnerable to enemies than a closed, authoritarian society. That’s just one of the prices we pay for freedom, and it’s more than made up  for by the positive benefits of liberty. Listen here if you like.

I’m afraid that the Virginia Tech killer is another example of the dark flip side of freedom. Here’s this bizarre, atomized person floating through the society, clearly dangerous, and yet few wanted to infringe on his little bubble of freedom. Okay, man, he’s weird, writes about all this violent stuff, but…I mean, it’s his thing, you know?

That’s how we treat each other: the individual is primary, and the needs/fears of the group a distant second. (Add to this the perpetual fear of litigation; if VT had just tossed the guy out, you think any plaintiffs’ lawyers might have been interested?)

In 99% of cases, live-and-let-live works just fine. And, in 99% of cases, people buy firearms for hunting or self-protection, never hurting another person. But once in a great while, someone comes along who can’t handle the wide latitude that America, for better and worse,  gives people to make up their lives as they like. When these damaged and dangerous but free and mobile people exercise their right to buy deadly weapons, the mix is combustible indeed. We’re lucky that the vast majority of mentally ill people are not violent.

By the way, none of this would comfort me  if I were the parent of one of these murdered kids. It’s always easy to take the long view of suffering when we’re not doing the suffering.

Gun Control? Not Gonna Happen

I’ve got several items I want to blog about. I’ve started a couple times and stopped. . .  The shootings are still on my mind.

Being Americans, we want to “do something” about problems. We want to fix things. It’s not easy for us to take the stoic,  philosophical route, to say that the world has always been plagued by inexplicable evil and, as far as we can imagine, it always will be. Even if we consider ourselves religious and believe that there is an overarching purpose behind all the suffering, we’d still like to come up with some kind of program that would make such horrors impossible while we await eternal bliss.

It’s tempting to just dump it back on Washington and call for more gun control. Blame the usual suspects like the NRA. But, setting aside the question of whether there should be more gun control, it’s not  worth getting excited over because it’s not  politically possible. I was astonished when the Brady Bill and the assault-weapon ban passed,  and I think that probably represents the outer limits of gun control in America.

I’ll be very surprised if any major piece of gun  legislation comes to a vote as a result of this massacre, or the next massacre, which could be a copycat job in the next few weeks. Tell the truth, I’ll be surprised if any major gun control bill passes the Congress during my  lifetime. With bloody  rhetorical warfare and years of huffing and puffing, they might pass a bill regulating sales at flea markets and gun shows, and might add an assault weapon or two, but the political  price would be enormous and I seriously doubt it will happen.

And it’s certainly not going to happen under this Congress. Here’s why:

They’d need every single Democrat and several Republicans to pass it over Bush’s inevitable veto. And on this inflammatory subject, I would be surprised if the Dems even wanted one of those symbolic, noble-cause votes on the subject.

Here’s what the Dems are  thinking: Bush is destroying himself and his party with the war. The ‘Pubs will have to launch a major social-issues battle  to avoid a wipeout in ’08. Why should we Dems hand the GOP a third “G” weapon so they can hit us with God, Guns and Gays in ’08? Let’s lie low on this issue. Then, if we roll up gigantic  margins next time around, we’ll see about some of these hot-button issues. But not now.

By the way, I think even a hugely Democrat Congress in ’08, perhaps with a President Clinton and VP Obama, would not try a total ban on handguns. That’s not ever going to fly. Maybe the reforms I mentioned above–but probably not even that.

Besides, assume you banned all gun sales tomorrow, which I would not support. You’d still have millions of guns out there.  And, gosh, if such a ban was ever passed,  do you think anyone might smuggle in black-market guns? Not with our airtight borders. You just try crossing that border illegally and see what happens, amigo!

What Do We Tell the Kids?

In the wake of the terrible shootings in Virginia, many familiar responses will fill the press in the next few days:  The American gun culture. Contrasts with Europe, Asia, Scandinavia. The possible role of TV and movie violence. We must disarm the country. We must  arm every school teacher. We must “get to the fundamental root causes” of violence, as one authority demanded on NPR this morning. And what do we tell our children?

I’ll probably comment on some of this in the next few days, especially since gun control used to be a frequent topic for me. But right now, all I can think about is that last point: what do we tell the kids?

I was already thinking along those lines because of the family shootings in Richardson a couple of days ago. A  father, apparently distraught driven mad over an impending divorce, killed his 6-year old daughters  and himself, and critically wounded his 13-year old daughter.

Our 12-year old  daughter is now at the age where we just can’t hide bad news from her (even if it was advisable to try, which is another subject). This morning, listening to “that station that plays all those ridiculous rap songs”(my description)  as she got ready for school, she heard them talking about the shootings in Virginia.

On the way to school, she brought it up. She doesn’t bring up news topics very often.

I mumbled something  about how sad, how terrible…every once in a while, some angry or insane person gets a gun and does something like this. I mentioned the UT shootings from the Sixties.

Then, silence. She listened to the music. We drove on, and as we did I thought about how utterly inadquate were my words. Yes, it’s really, really sad, darling. Just terrible. But what else can I say? What guarantee can I give her?

Earlier  some medical professional on the radio was talking about how to comfort and reassure kids at times like these. I couldn’t listen, because this is really one of those cases where you can tell the truth, which is depressing and cold, or you can opt for comforting lies.

The truth is that every day, a few people out of millions become statistics in random and not-so-random acts of violence.  We can and must do everything possible to get help for troubled people, train teachers to see warning signs,  keep weapons out of the wrong hands, etc.,  and I truly believe those and other efforts will help reduce violence.

But those steps, necessary as they are,  won’t end violence.  All too often the “wrong hands” seem like the right hands until the moment the hand starts pulling the trigger. Gun store clerks are not psychologists or priests.  And what do you do about some perfectly sane, happy guy who buys a gun in 1990 for a little hunting fun, and  uses the gun for murder 10 or 15 years later?

The vast majority of our kids will never be victims of a crazed shooter. Look at the statistics. But it seems like pretty cold comfort to say, well, hey, those are the breaks. Fate. Chance. 

 I guess I could say “Well,  after all, the odds of you being shot at school are less than . . . ” And I’d be right; most likely, the god of probability will keep her safe.  But that’s not the same as saying,  “Darling, it won’t happen. I won’t let it happen. I promise. ” That’s what parents want to say. It’s what we’ve got to say, because the numbers, while they don’t lie, don’t comfort, either.