by Tom Pantera
Columnist

This is being written Sunday night, less than three days after what may be the most horrific day in American history. Life has gone on – got Christmas shopping mostly done, my Vikings won while Karon’s Chiefs lost – but it’s gone on against a backdrop of darkness and blood.

So this is bound to be somewhat disjointed. Unlike other disasters, which seem to take on some kind of shape after a day or two, this one keeps shifting. It’s like malevolent smoke, permeating the very air we breathe but impossible to grab onto. We’re all groping our way through that smoky room and, I suspect, will be for some time.

So, a few thoughts:

First, the news coverage. In the news business, especially the academic end of it, the coverage of any event is watched with (one hopes) a discerning eye. There have been some differences this time. It’s a teachable moment for we journalism educators and my hope is that this will be something we can really chew over with the goal of making our work better.

For those of you who were outraged that reporters were interviewing little kids on the morning of the massacre – well, you’re right. There was ABSOLUTELY no reason reporters should have been sticking microphones in the faces of elementary school kids at the scene. First of all, as any reporter or cop will tell you, eyewitness accounts, especially those given under that kind of duress, are pretty much worthless. Even with the parents’ permission, it still was wrong; the parents were under as much stress as the kids and really weren’t in a position to give meaningful consent. And absolutely nothing those kids would have said outweighed the possible harm done by just sticking the microphone in front of them.

Karon and I mostly watched CNN, which did an admirable job. It was fascinating, and really a bit heartening from a professional standpoint, to see reporters visibly trying to hold themselves together on-air (and not always succeeding). I don’t like to see a reporter bleeding all over the carpet – there are too many who consider themselves the story – but I think a little humanity went a long way. It gave a certain emotional depth to the reporting.

One of the early debates in journalism has been how often to use the shooter’s name. I even saw one piece advocating not using it at all. I think that’s a bit extreme. It’s part of the story, after all. And we can’t begin to examine why this happened unless we know who did it. We don’t know if the guy figured it would make him famous, but the argument that naming names only gives these people the fame they crave leaves me cold. It may be the fame they wanted, but it’s certainly not the kind of fame they wanted. Few people, even insane ones, want their name to go down in history as belonging to one of the biggest monsters who ever existed.

It’s also been interesting to see the early stages of the debate we’re going to have once the bodies are buried and life everywhere but Newtown returns to normal. For once, people are starting to answer back the NRA and other organizations who don’t want that debate. That hasn’t kept the pro-gun forces from mounting their usual ludicrous defenses, but this time they actually ring hollow.

Of course, one of the first things said by that side was that had the teachers been armed, the massacre might not have happened. Texas Rep. Louis Gohmert, already probably the biggest idiot in that home for the brainless called the House of Representatives, defended the private possession of assault rifles and said he wished the principal “had had an M-4 in her office” with which to take out the gunman. Noted national crap-sack William Bennett also came out for arming teachers.

Suffice it to say that’s an argument that doesn’t even merit a response. It’s so ludicrous that they might as well be arguing for arming teachers with backpack nukes.

On the plus side, some people are saying now is the time for the gun debate to take place, even though it’s pretty early in the story. They’re right. We no longer have the luxury of waiting for passions to cool before we do something. It doesn’t get any worse than this. If we don’t do something now, then we had better accept that we never will.

The first thing we need to do is ban assault rifles. The pro-gun forces are going to throw a lot of dirt in our eyes; they’re going to talk about their obvious misinterpretation of the Second Amendment and then they’re going to throw around a lot of technical information aimed at proving you can’t define “assault rifle.” Well, we can and have in the past. They’re not benign weapons for hunting and home protection. They’re meant to kill large numbers of people in a short time. And unless you’re a cop or a soldier, there’s no good reason to own one. Period.

And yes, better treatment for the mentally ill has to be on the agenda, but first we have to find out the exact nature of Adam Lanza’s mental illness. It’s still possible that rather than being mentally ill he was simply an evil, horrible soul. Granted, that’s not likely, but we’d better determine whether what he had was even treatable.

There are many more questions to be raised in the coming weeks, once our initial horror has scabbed over a bit. But if we are to salvage something like good out of these horrors, it will take some decisive action that is beyond politics or money or fear or even hope. It will take some hard realism. It’s time for that.