By Bill Press
Tribune Media Services
John F. Kennedy. Martin Luther King Jr. Bobby Kennedy. John Lennon. George Moscone. Harvey Milk. We’ve been there so often, we should be used to it by now. But it still hurts deeply every time.
And here we are again. Fortunately, it looks like Gabrielle Giffords will survive. But her attempted assassination, and the murder of six of her constituents, forces us, once again, to face the dark underbelly of America and ask some serious questions.
Yes, one disturbed young man pulled the trigger. He and he alone deserves the blame. But we can’t ignore three factors that may have contributed to his senseless act: the fact that he never got the mental health attention he so desperately needed; the fact that such a mentally unstable individual was so easily able to buy a lethal weapon; and the fact that he attempted his political assassination in the most toxic political atmosphere in America — against a woman who had herself been the target of ugly political attacks.
As President Obama noted in his remarks in Tucson, we Americans learn from each such tragedy and rebound determined to make society and ourselves better. In this case, that means looking for ways to improve accessibility of care for the mentally ill, to tighten our gun laws, and, especially, to debate political issues “in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.”
http://www.billpressshow.com/2011/01/14/at-time-of-healing-sarah-palin-throws-gas-on-flames/