Is That Legal?

I think Volokh is wrong on almost every account. No, I don't think you have to wait a "decent interval" before pointing out someone's flaws as a public person. No, I don't think the gun control activists were the first to politicize this, or the most egregious: there's nothing at all counterintuitive about saying "hey, we've been saying these things are bad all along" where as the "more guns would make us all safer" is a far more tendentious position and one which implicitly blames the victims as too passive in their own deaths.

On the other hand, socio-cultural speculation about the effects of atheism, etc., are clearly out of bounds.

because of a sequence of things i'd read just before getting the news, my first reaction to this was to hide from the obviously oncoming public outpouring of shock and sympathy — i failed, even after bloodying my tongue to keep it from wagging — and found myself posing a series of questions about how these deaths compared to a day, any given day, in any given large city in iraq, and how many years of american crazy shootings you had to collect before you reached a week of civilian bloodshed over there. bowling for columbine — commentary — premiered just shy of 5 years ago. it's just not that common an event.

i'm appalled, and not really expecting better from us, but appalled anyhow that we're about to launch into a discussion of 2nd amendment junk again when our continuing horror kills as many ordinary people as died at VT — if the lancet report is right — what, every 3 hours or so? shorter than that? with iran in our sights, and afghanistan not included, somalia not included.

and i feel for the families all around. nobody wants to lose loved ones to violence, combat or not. accidents and illness, by themselves, don't shake your trust in society, don't make you afraid of living.

so i guess what i'm saying, outta nowhere — hello, people! — is i understand the politicization on the right, where the quality of any piece of evidence they offer is proven by speed and quantity of the pile they heap upon you, and they don't dare slow down or tell a straight story, else the venom wears off and people escape the trap. but it's still a matter of perspective, of trying to keep people's eyes from wandering from the job at hand. i felt a certain cold kinship.