FROM READER SUPPORTED NEWS

America Is Soft on Domestic Terrorism

By Frank Rich, New York Magazine

19 September 13

Every week, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich talks with contributor Eric Benson about the biggest stories in politics and culture. This week: Congress shrugs off a murderous rampage in D.C., Larry Summers proves he can count, and the GOP out-mavericks James Garner.

fter Monday's slaughter at the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard, members of Congress made it very clear that they had no desire to touch the new third-rail of American politics, gun control. Since that's off the table at a federal level, is there any political step that can be taken - even a small, imperfect one - to stop mass shootings?

Essentially, no. Perhaps the best thing we can do is at least call out the problem for what it is: state-sponsored terrorism. The American people and their elected representatives allow our own homegrown equivalent of suicide bombers - suicide shooters - legal access to weapons with which they can mow down innocents almost anywhere they please. Bloomberg's money can't solve this (indeed his political contributions on behalf of gun-law reformers may have backfired) and neither can the blather of a thousand moralizing talking heads. So now, as always happens after these bloodbaths, the real problem is put on hold again and we are back to talking about side issues. Many are calling for keeping a closer watch on government contractors, for instance, but where were they when government contractors at Blackwater, et al, were wreaking havoc on civilians during the Iraq War? That horse is long out of the barn; we have an increasingly privatized government, cheered on by the same anti-government political party that is most in thrall to the NRA.

That old hobbyhorse of violent entertainment is also back for another run: Hosts at Fox & Friends at Fox News (Elizabeth Hasselbeck) and Morning Joe at MSNBC (Mika Brzezinski) are united in angrily decrying violent video games. No doubt this makes them feel righteous, but if they really believe this is the crux of the matter, and had guts, they'd start by publicly demanding that their own parent companies dump any and all media products trading in violence. Somehow I don't think that's going to happen. Nor are we going to get better mental-health treatment for psychopaths like Aaron Alexis if the opponents of Obamacare (or any national health-care alternative) have anything to say about it. But let's do talk about it. I remain convinced that the issue of guns in American culture, as hard-wired to our national origins as slavery was, will take every bit as long to rectify as slavery, and can only happen if Americans want it to happen, which most of them don't now. So let's at least acknowledge the truth: This country is soft on domestic terrorism.