USU professors discuss current gun rights issues
In the wake of the shooting that occurred on Saturday, Jan. 8 in Tucson, Ariz., USU students and professors are weighing in on the political storm that has followed the event.
“We feel that this is a time when we need to forget about partisanship,” said Terry Camp, chairman of the USU College Republicans. “We should be unifying as a nation and working together to make sure this never happens again instead of pointing fingers.”
Damon Cann, professor of political science, said within the first 24-48 hours after the shooting, fingers were pointed every which way from Sarah Palin, to the FBI, to the general political atmosphere in the United States. The right, he said, has been particularly targeted in large part because of a map posted on Sarah Palin’s website that illustrated a pair of crosshairs over the district where the shooting took place. The district was one of many to be placed in Palin’s crosshairs.
“People have intimated that this was motivated by Tea Party activism or Sarah Palin,” said professor Cann. “The passage of time has shown as we learn more and more about (Jared) Loughner and his background that there’s really no indication that he had links to those sort of things.”
Michael Lyons, professor of political science and a self-proclaimed moderate democrat, said, “As little regard as I have for Glenn Beck and the other extremist commentators, I don’t think they should be held accountable for any of this. Crazy people are going to behave in crazy ways, and we can’t hold the broader culture accountable for their actions.”
Michael Sowder, associate professor of English, said he acknowledges the role that psychological impairments may have played, but finds it hard to ignore the lack of restraint in political discourse.
“The hostile, inflammatory, violent discourse one finds in places like talk radio can play a role in inciting an unstable person toward violent action,” he said.
Professor Lyons said the accusations and pointed fingers are evidence of the highly polarized and deplorable state of US politics. He said people on both the left and the right are responsible for creating the highly charged atmosphere current in U.S. politics.
“When a senator like Bob Bennett loses his seat for daring to take what I would consider to be a responsible position in the national interest that happens to be moderate and bi-partisan, we really have a problem in the United States,” Lyons said.
Cann said one of the tragic aspects of this shooting has been the general response from U.S. politicians and activists.
“I’m deeply disappointed in the individuals on the left and on the right who have tried to make this a political issue rather than sitting back and allowing respectful civilized mourning for an unspeakable tragedy,” Cann said. “It’s more than a little sad.”
One of the main topics of interest following this tragedy is the age-old debate on gun control.
“Events like this ought to make us think about what we’re doing in society,” Cann said. “It was actually the shooting of Ronald Reagan and his assistant Mr. Brady the led to the passage of the Brady law that we think of today as providing some degree of protection against the violent use of firearms.”
Camp said, “We should avoid passing policies in a time of duress because such policies are rarely effective.”
“We feel that any policies that need to be looked at should be examined in a timely manner,” he said, “but we want open, honest and calm debate.”
Professor Larry Boothe, who teaches on national security policy on campus, said the issue of gun control will simply go away as it has before.
“I don’t think gun control will be overturned in my lifetime or my children’s,” he said. “The second amendment can’t be trumped, it’s an ironclad amendment. The Democratic Party has given up on implementing more strict gun control.”
To him, gun control is a non-issue because he claims it won’t stop violence.
“I have served in a number of countries where citizens are not allowed to have guns and these countries are full of violent gangs and militias,” Boothe said. “I’m very sorry to have these kinds of events take place, but we’re going to see a lot more of them.”
Sowder said the fact that countries such as Canada, England and France have fewer homicides is because they have tighter gun control.
“In a state like Arizona, where anyone can carry a concealed firearm, even without a permit,” he said, “it obviously makes it easier for someone deranged to be able to easily kill another person.”
Jennifer Sinor, associate professor of English, said she believes the problem runs much deeper than gun control.
“I don’t know what the solution is,” she said, “but I do think that what we do every day in the classroom at universities like Utah State is a step in the right direction. Fear comes from ignorance, and the classroom has the power to teach us how to build a more socially just world.”
– mike.burnham@aggiemail.usu.edu