Weapons are more lethal than words

By Russell Jacoby

The old childhood ditty, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," has proved wiser than the avalanche of commentary provoked by the killings this year at Virginia Tech and by the insults to African-American athletes this past April by the obnoxious radio jock Don Imus. As a society, we increasingly forbid public name-calling but allow sticks and stones. Anyone can acquire a gun, but everyone must be careful about what they say.

The Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, trumps the First Amendment, the freedom of speech. By virtue of fact and reason this is bizarre. The Second Amendment remains disputed: Does the right to bear arms refer to state militias or private individuals? Apart from matters of law, how is it that verbal slights provoke widespread condemnation, while a crazed shooting elicits reflections that mainly focus on demented students and failures of security? In short, why are words treated as more dangerous than lethal weapons?

The Virginia killings are a case in point. In its aftermath, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia highlighted several areas of concern: details of the shootings by Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho, the response of the university and police, and Cho's past "interaction with the mental health system." He said nothing in particular about how the shooter acquired guns. Subsequently, Kaine did close one loophole that allowed the mentally ill to obtain guns, but loopholes persist — for instance, virtually anyone can acquire arms at gun shows.

The point here is simple: If Cho had shown up at Virginia Tech with a knife or knives, what would have been the death toll? One or two students before he would have been tackled? Ditto for the shootings at Columbine. The issue is not the deranged among us — most, and there are many, are harmless — but their access to guns. Instead of zealously controlling firearms, we pour more resources into improving security. Already many of our high schools look like prisons, replete with intimidating fences and controlled entrances. Will our universities move in the same direction?

We have come to accept that to enter many public buildings requires security checks. Yet what is that sort of initiative doing to our society? We apparently are willing to become a frightened people living in controlled spaces because we lack the will — and pretend we lack the means — to sharply limit and control guns. Yes, knives kill — in Japan a crazed adult killed eight children before he was stopped — but they do not have the massive impact of guns.

Yet even as we cower in our public spaces, our sensitivity to verbal taunts intensifies. You don't have to be a civil libertarian to realize that sanitizing our public language risks abridging free speech. No one condones racial and ethnic slurs, but where is the line between jokes, satire, and repellent conversation on the one hand and prohibited speech on the other? Many Muslims found offensive the cartoons first published in Denmark that ridiculed their prophet. Is religion off limits? Free speech requires thick skin. But no skin resists bullets.

Jacoby is a professor of history. A longer version of this article recently appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education.