On December 11, a gunman killed two, wounded one and then killed himself in a mall in Clackamas, Oregon. The Seattle Times responded with an editorial captioned "Put the Oregon mall shooting in perspective." Its perspective is that we shouldn’t be upset: shopping malls rarely are the venue for deadly gunfire and only a small fraction of the people at the Clackamas mall were killed; the shooting "is not . . . a reason to be intimidated."
The Times seemed to deplore the media attention to the event: "A shooting is news. It should also be news that the rate of murder in America has fallen wonderfully in the past 20 years. . . . And while random murders in public places get big attention, few murders are random. Retail districts full of holiday shoppers are some of the safest places there are."
One of the perspectives the Times might have noted is that the country is awash in firearms. By one standard, beloved of Fox News, it would have been bad taste to mention that during a period of mourning, but talking about gun control couldn’t have been less sensitive than the Times’ advice to get out and shop. If we were having an ongoing dialogue about gun control, suspension of the discussion for a period after a shooting spree might be appropriate. However, we aren’t having that debate, and the only time anyone focuses on the problem is in the aftermath of killing. Almost as if to mock the Times ’ complacency, on Friday a gunman entered the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., and killed 26 students and teachers before committing suicide.
The paper addressed the Sandy Hook massacre this morning with a brief editorial comment notable for its evasiveness. "Once past the initial shock and grief that comes with deadly rampages in a single week, the public will demand a sober conversation about violence against innocents." Should that conversation include proposals for gun control? Well, no. The Times mentioned the Clackamas and Sandy Hook shootings, but added a reference to an attack by "a knife-wielding man" in China. "Reality will hopefully trump old rhetoric about violence and weapons," we were told, the message apparently being that taking away guns won’t eliminate violence. Of course it won’t, but it surely will reduce the number of dead. (The editorial neglected to mention that there were no fatalities in the China incident).
The paper addressed the Sandy Hook massacre this morning with a brief editorial comment notable for its evasiveness. "Once past the initial shock and grief that comes with deadly rampages in a single week, the public will demand a sober conversation about violence against innocents." Should that conversation include proposals for gun control? Well, no. The Times mentioned the Clackamas and Sandy Hook shootings, but added a reference to an attack by "a knife-wielding man" in China. "Reality will hopefully trump old rhetoric about violence and weapons," we were told, the message apparently being that taking away guns won’t eliminate violence. Of course it won’t, but it surely will reduce the number of dead. (The editorial neglected to mention that there were no fatalities in the China incident).
The Times managed to find the common element in the incidents to be that "they took place in innocuous settings — shopping malls, schools — with innocent victims," which doesn’t suggest any plan of action. Accordingly, the editorial’s conclusion — "Saying and doing nothing is not an option in the face of so many funerals and grieving families" — is devoid of content, and ludicrous given its refusal to mention guns.
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