I have seen too much human blood spilled in my lifetime -- of people I did not know -- mostly in wartime. I was trained to use a rifle and a handgun at Fort Ord, California before shipping overseas as a GI. In self-defense, I killed Chinese soldiers in Korea. In Vietnam, I had to write a letter of condolence to the parents of a gallant U.S. Army advisor who was killed a few feet away from me in a Vietcong ambush. Now, whenever I go to Washington, I make a point of visiting the Vietnam memorial to lay flowers aside the name of Captain Byron C. Stone, a West Point graduate, who was killed with three other advisors. He was the only son of an elderly couple in Mobile, Alabama. Nearly four years later, in the midst of the Tet Offensive, when it was still unclear that the Vietcong had been routed from Saigon, I kept a .38 caliber weapon alongside my bed as a protective measure in an apartment I shared with another journalist. I kept the pistol until I returned home to the United States and then threw it in a garbage can. I did not feel comfortable having the weapon anywhere near my family.
Eventually, when two armed teenagers were killed in a high school gang fight in the San Fernando Valley, I chastised their parents in a broadcast I did in Los Angeles, citing the story of my experience in Vietnam. I also made a strong plea for gun control. The reaction was predictable. Dozens of angry letters came in from radio listeners. Two of them actually called me a fool. Others said I was just naïve, and a few threatened my life.
A decade or more later, the idea of gun control is still a hot button issue; out of reach and beyond the will and courage of most politicians in the U.S. Congress or most state legislatures to face down one of the strongest and most endowed lobbies in history, the National Rifle Association.
The tragic events that unfolded last Saturday could alter the national discourse. The reporting of the past 72 hours or more has reminded us of the other tragedies that have confronted us in our public and private lives since the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy as well as the innocent victims of Columbine and Virginia Tech. And the list grows. Now it is up to the most articulate figure in the land to put the national pain into some perspective; that man, of course, being the president of the United States.
From the horrific story in Arizona several positive symbols have emerged: first, the heroism of several unarmed people who had the courage to tackle and disarm the killer, Jared L. Loughner. Secondly, the team of surgeons who operated feverishly to save the life of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and finally, American newspapers that have published the story in enormous and riveting detail. The daily press ain't dead yet.
Certainly, the reporting by Marc Lacey of the New York Times, and journalists of the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, as well as other daily newspapers have given people across the country as complete a picture of the tragedy as anyone could possibly expect. The public may have forgotten that the talking heads of television and radio could not thrive without the newspapers that land on their laps every morning. The printed word, be it on paper or online or any other form of technological wizardry has helped to inform any American with the patience to read and understand the terrible story that has grabbed the nation's conscience by the throat.
The confusing hypocrisy that always seems to have divided Americans is the issue of
how we control the proliferation and use of guns. It is what almost every decent law enforcement officer in the land wants. I hesitate to use the commonly used phrase of gun control because that frightens many office seekers like lead poisoning. Nonetheless, the muffled debate until now is between those who want to end gun violence and are appalled by the tragedy in Tucson and those who equally are shocked , but fervently stick to their constitutional right to own a gun; even among those who do not know how to use one. The debate always is the aftermath of a senseless massacre that has shocked the nation once again.
Unfortunately, the supporters of gun control automatically want to silence the loudmouths on talk radio and television or dispense with Sarah Palin. In spirit, I understand them, but as a First Amendment fanatic, I believe Beck, O'Reilly and Limbaugh have the right to voice their reckless or cynical points of view, however absurd they may be. Americans are entitled to hear and evaluate them, but NOT act on them as we might assume Jared Loughner did in attempting to assassinate Congresswoman Giffords. We do not know at this point what it was that affected the unstable gunman, but odds are that we will not be pleased by what we hear once Loughner agrees to testify in court.
The unanswered question is who is giving the purveyors of their exaggerations and inflammatory language the means to pollute the airwaves? After all, as consumers we deserve truth in packaging and should know the names of the principal owners of our television and radio networks. Of course, most Americans are wise enough to know already. Nonetheless, it would be useful to be reminded of just who is making it possible to present the warped view of American politics 24/7. We know it ain't a Fox. But it is in one sense, the well-heeled multi-billionaire who may be too embarrassed to admit he is the man who makes it possible to peddle the poison on the Murdoch Television Network.