A new book (A Safeway in Arizona) on the Giffords shooting last year tries to pin the blame on several causes. The author, Zoellner, talks about how bleak and barren Arizona is, and how the people are isolated.
That seems ridiculous to me; I imagine more people in Arizona are inclined to agree with Emerson:
It is only as a man puts off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town?
Zoellner even throws in a token “if there had been a federal ban on arm’s-length magazines that carry thirty-three bullets” as one possible way the shooting could have been avoided.
I’m not going to go into how that’s not really a solution. What I wrote last year is just as relevant today.
