The let's ban something party

I think you’ve hit a real and understandable fact in all this, Steve: Congress is frightened by what happened in Tucson, and who can blame them?  It is frightening.  That’s obviously no excuse to curb any sane person’s freedom of speech, but the lure to “Do something! Ban something!” may end up being irresistible for some of them.

Over at The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru speculates that the left’s leap to blame Tucson on Palin and the right isn’t likely to work, because most of the country just doesn’t see conservatives, or the tea parties, or Sarah Palin as dangerous or culpable for what happened.  I suspect that he’s right, but we’ll see.  The bulk of the mainstream media very much does see conservatives etc in that light, and they’re using this tragedy for all it’s worth right now.