The aftershock is to be anticipated.  As the  New York Times says, politicians of all stripes are concerned for their safety.  Who wouldn’t be?

“In each district you represent your share of unstable people,” Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, said Sunday as he and other House members pulled for the recovery of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and struggled with how to respond to the shootings. “Now you are aware that they do show up at your town hall meetings and maybe they are not all harmless.”

They never were, but it can be ignored as long as elected officials aren’t forced to face it.  After the shooting of Giffords, it’s as in-their-faces as it can be.  But this isn’t a new threat, merely the forced recognition of things they would rather ignore.  After all, it’s hard to shake hands, kiss babies and smile constantly when thoughts of nutjobs are running through your head.

Lawmakers also live the most public of lives and, like Ms. Giffords, heavily promote their local events to encourage people to attend. They say that they cannot retreat behind police escorts and security barriers.

Elected officials need to meet the people, both from their institutional need to hear what their constituents have to say as well as their institutional need to make people want to re-elect them.  It’s one of the few aspects of political life that has any decent balance.  Of course, between media and corporate money, that balance may not last much longer, but that’s a separate issue.

Three reactions may well be in the offing as a result of the tragedy, which like most compels people to do something, anything, regardless of whether it solves the problem or creates more problems than it solves.  Americans are a people of action.  We like action.  We respect action, regardless of whether it’s the right action.  Why else would people chant the Nike slogan?

1.  Elected officials will begin the process of surrounding themselves with protection.  Whether local cops or capital security, perhaps even a new department within Homeland Security to protect officials from those who would do them harm.  We have a lot of elected officials, and protecting them would be a monumental endeavor, as they are by definition public people and they tend to go back to the states/districts from time to time. 

This would likely be coupled with regulations to facilitate their movement apart from the groundlings, such as not being forced to wait on airport security lines.  Of course, there’s no particularly good reason for a congressman to stand on an airport security line from a security perspective (heck, if they were going to blow something up, the capital rotunda would be a more more impressive choice).  But it’s critically important that they suffer they same indignities they impose on the rest of us, so they have a clue how miserable they are making life for everyone else.

2.  Criminalizing the very threat of threats.  One idea being floated is to create new federal crimes for threatening elected officials.  From a security standpoint, this would facilitate protection by giving law enforcement a tool to pinch a potential attacker before the notion of an actual attack is even a twinkle in his eyes.  But then again, rhetoric being what it is, much is said and written for impact, to make a point, to emphasize a belief and position, using words that might suggest a more radical approach in the real world when its purpose and intention is merely to persuade and inspire the slugs who occupy the easy chairs to get off their duff.

But the potential new federal crime of Hyperbole in the First Degree serves less to identify those who might actually do harm than to stifle expression at the core of democracy.  Words are necessary to convey messages, and they are often messy and over the top.  It’s not to say that inflammatory or vitriolic rhetoric is a joy of political expression, but that criminalizing it would be the death of political dissent. 

We might end up with nicer, calmer politics, but at the expense of honest dissent.  The use of subtle, nuanced discussion to make our positions clear, unfortunately, ended when William F. Buckley’s Firing Line was canceled.  Heck, he would have been forced to change the title of his show, given how it incites violence.

3.  The worst of the potential reactions is that elected officials feel constrained to keep their opinions to themselves.

“I know that I am considered to be a bit more confrontational and outspoken,” said Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, “and I’ve lived with that all of my life, that my political philosophy and my willingness to speak up and speak out kind of creates risk and some danger. I accept that as part of my job.”

It is part of the job.  If elected officials, or candidates for political office, cease speaking their minds, leaving us with homogenized, sweet-appearing shells of people, how would we know for sure that they’re not a witch?  We need them to speak, loudly and clearly, if we’re to know who we’re putting in the seat to vote on our behalf.  Anything that stifles their open expression of their positions, or gives them a free pass to keep it to themselves for their own safety, denies us the opportunity to make intelligent choices.  Of course, to the extent we ever make intelligent choices.

A different idea, perhaps, should be considered.  One thing I’ve come to realize by writing this blawg and reading the comments people leave behind is that there are far, far more people out there who are within the range of DSM-IV than I would have believed.  Perhaps nutjobs tend to like tapping on keyboards more than normal folks, but they are certainly out there, and their ability to congregate and work themselves up online amongst themselves empowers them to believe that they aren’t nearly as crazy as others say, and have more support than they would have believe, sitting at home by themselves cooking up wild conspiracies.

Granted, acts of violence by people with mental illness against elected officials are still extremely rare.  It’s not like there’s an epidemic happening before our eyes.  But the solution to stopping this violence isn’t in criminalizing the world of the rest of us, or undermined basic tenets of democracy.  How about identifying those with mental illness and providing them treatment?  How about making sure that people whose minds struggle to function in a nonviolent way, who see harm as a viable means of expression, receive the care they desperately need?

Of course, it’s hardly as bold a reaction to a terrible tragedy than, say, establishing a new congressional protection service, or passing a slew of laws criminalizing the use of words that could be misinterpreted to suggest radical change.  But it might help to address the cause of the problem, and actually do some good in the process. 

No solution will ever eliminate all people with mental illness who, through the psychotic prism of their mind, see violence as the answer.  Nor will criminalizing speech, nor even providing round the clock protective services that isolate public officials from those they promised to represent.  But providing treatment to the mentally ill might actually do some good in the process, even if those receiving treatment aren’t inclined to pick up a gun and start shooting. 

If we need to have a knee-jerk reaction to this tragedy, would it be so terrible to have one that actually did some good for people? 

Update:  Via Eugene Volokh, my very own representative, Peter King, has come up with a new law!

New York Republican Rep. Peter King said Tuesday that he will introduce legislation to ban the carrying of any firearm within 1,000 feet of what he described as “high-profile government officials.” …

And hilarity ensues.  Aside from the over-abundant vagaries (who is a “high-profile government official”?) and imagine the likelihood of knowing one is within a 1,000 feet in a place lik Penn Station in Manhattan, where half a million people are within 1,000 feet of each other at rush hour, such a law does nothing to protect an official but merely gives the police another law with which to prosecute.  Because murder isn’t good enough?

We love Peter King, always an excellent source of amusement.