BANG! You're dead.

Daily life can be stressful. In bad economic times the stress level rises, and not everyone is equipped to cope. The sane, normal person recognizes that events are
not always in his/her control and rolls with the punches. But in all societies there are failed personalities that look for places and people to blame for the the turn of events and their own inadequacies. There are among them persons who are obviously insane as manifested by bizarre, violent or anti social behavior. They are easily
identified and can be dealt with. But the disaffected person who is functional is
difficult to identify if he wishes to remain obscure. That is the individual who represents a great danger to society because at some point he will act upon his frustrations by striking out at the imagined cause of his difficulties. His act
could be directed against an individual, as in an assassination, or a symbol of the institution he abhors, such as a Timothy McVeigh.
The frustration is aften directed against entire groups, such as the Nazi anti-jewish crusade, or the KU KLUX KLAN against people of color.
In order to carry out a violent act a weapon is required, be it a physical one, or
a psychological one such as mass hysteria stirred up by a dynamic personality--
a Hitler, or a David Duke.
For the individual hater the weapon of choice is a firearm. A gun is easy to conceal, it kills from a distance so human contact with the victim does not interfere with the task at hand, and allows distance to escape. With the universal
availability of guns in our violent society, any nut case can be as powerful as the head of state, even to the point of igniting a world war as the asassination of
an Archduke did for WWI.
And we love our guns---more than our children; witness the number of children who kill themselves or other children after finding a loaded gun in the home. The parents could have avoided that tragedy by locking up the gun, but then "it wouldn't be handy if I had to shoot a burglar."
When an agitated hater is stirred up and validated by extremist politicians and pundits, on Radio, TV and in the press, he feels that he is performing a noble service to society by murdering a museum attendant, a physician, a government official who is "coming to take away his guns", or a President who is selling out the nation to the Muslims. Aren't those rabble rousers accesories to the crime?

What happened to civility and tolerance for other opinions in politics? Why do the divisive, strident voices dominate the debate? Is it because they can't win in the arena of ideas?