Like a lot of folks, I’ve been watching a lot of news coverage of this past weekend’s shooting in Tuscon. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.<\/p>\n
A couple of thoughts about the tragedy and its aftermath:<\/p>\n
1. I never fail to be surprised at the lengths people will go to score political points from such a tragedy. I think most voters see such politicians for what they really are and they’ll get their just desserts the next time an election rolls around.<\/p>\n
2. A Predictable Tragedy in Tuscon<\/a> in today’s Wall Street Journal is a worthwhile read. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with political speech. Instead, it focuses on one of the most underreported aspects of the story: the fact that the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, had untreated mental illnesses. As long as we continue to ignore the problem of how we as a society deal with treatment of the mentally ill we’ll see these type of events continue to occur. All you have to do is look back at similar events and see how many of the perpetrators had a history of mental illness.<\/p>\n