Intolerance and us

The cartoon character POGO famously said "We have met the enemy and he is us".  Looking at the murderous thug who killed three young muslims in North Carolina supposedly over a parking dispute, I would have to say the quote still rings true.  To look at Chris Hicks and his wife you see typical Americans.  Look closer and you see the twin scourges of the early 21st century, namely guns and intolerance.  Together, they are a heady mix.  When ordinary people have lethal force available to them at any time, the temptation to use it to settle something so mundane as the availability of parking spaces becomes the logical extension of the NRA's mantra that good guys with guns are the antidote to bad guys with guns.  Unfortunately, neither people or the situations they encounter are quite as black and white as sloganeering would have us believe.   Maybe if Hick's disputants had been as white as he, and as well armed he wouldn't have blown them away.  But they were unarmed "foreigners", so his violent fantasies played out with tragic results.  That's not the way this story will be played by the media.  The root cause of the crime it allowing citizens to walk around with a gun strapped to their hip and very little restraint on their ability to use it.  We are trending in a very dark and dangerous direction.