June 23, 2015
Source: Shutterstock
None of us who read those emails expected this guy to set the world record for gun-toting killing sprees. Seventy-seven dead bodies later, were our faces red. As attuned as I am to warning signs, I missed this one. And that’s my point. The next spree killer might be the guy so obvious that (as in the case of Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho) everybody says, “Oh yeah, we all knew he was gonna pop off.” Or it might be the polite young man with good manners and a calm demeanor. You just never know.
Over the past month, I”ve been inundated with emails regarding a 28-year-old man named David Lenio, who’s being prosecuted in Montana for “group defamation,” defined by the Montana statute as “anything that exposes a person or a group, class, or association to hatred, contempt, ridicule, degradation, or disgrace in society.” People have been emailing me about this because back in March I”d written about the origin of the modern U.S. “group defamation” law, and I predicted that it would eventually be put into practice.
But my concern here isn”t group defamation, but rather the accused, Lenio. Here are a few of his Twitter postings:
USA needs a Hitler to rise to power and fix our #economy and i”m about ready to give my life to the cause or just shoot a bunch of #kikes…. I think every jew on the planet deserves to be killed for what kikes have done to our #dollar and cost of living Killing jews > wage #slave…. Best way to counter the harm #jewish #politics is causing is #ChapelHillShooting styling killing of #jews til they get the hint & leave…. Seriously working 4 poverty wages that cant even afford housing, food & keeping a running vehicle makes me want to shoot up a school or jews
Another Jonathan Haynes? Possibly, yes. But his “crime” is, as of now, merely words. At the same time, I”ll admit that David Lenio scares the living hell out of me. This is a man with a very sick mind. But those who suggest that the answer to this kind of dilemma is to lock people up until they start “thinking right” might want to consider the fact that Norway’s anti””hate speech” law did absolutely nothing to prevent Breivik’s massacre.
So what are we left with? We”re left with an uncertainty that we, as a society, can”t seem to comprehend or accept. We can”t predict the next mass shooter. We can”t be certain that the guy spouting ugly, violent rhetoric will ever cause real physical harm, and we can”t be certain that the pleasant and cultivated guy won”t. Some people, like the prosecutors in Montana, or like Bill Maher (who half-jokingly suggested that drone-bombing Fox News might prevent future spree killers), will argue that we can overcome this uncertainty by weakening the First Amendment, but I humbly suggest that we have no choice but to live with it. I call it a suggestion, but in truth I know better than that. It’s a reality, and one that no law, government program, or self-righteous pundit can disturb.
You don”t have to like the uncertainty in order to accept it. Reality never asks for your acquiescence. It doesn”t have to ask; it”ll receive it, whether you like it or not.
