“It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men.”
— Eric Hoffer
It is 1,218 miles from the Aaron Bessant Park Amphitheater in Panama City Beach, Fla., to the Walmart at 7101 Gateway Blvd. in El Paso. It was in that park that Donald Trump, on May 8, was amused by the answer someone in his audience shouted in response to his shouted question about would-be immigrants at the southern border. His question was, “How do you stop these people?” The shouted answer was, “Shoot them.” Trump, with a grade schooler’s delight in naughtiness, smiled and replied, “Only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement.” But does what happens in the Panhandle stay there?
When mass shootings occur, the nation quickly returns to worthy debates about three questions. One is whether gun control measures can be both constitutional and effective in making mass shootings less likely. A second debate concerns the ability and propriety of law enforcement attempts to identify individuals, usually young males, who might violently act out their inner turmoil.
The third question, which is braided with the second, acquires special urgency because of the nature of today’s most prominent American: Can we locate causes of violence in promptings from the social atmosphere?
