4A • COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • JULY 3, 2018
O PINION
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What are we willing to allow?
“Th ere is nothing more terrifying than
hearing multiple people get shot while
you’re under your desk and then you
hear the gunman reload.”
P
hil David and Anthony
Messenger are journalists.
And aft er the shooting at their
newsroom in Maryland on Th ursday,
June 28, they’re
still alive.
At
least
fi ve of their
colleagues are
not.
In the hours
By Caitlyn May
cmay@cgsentinel.com
aft er
another
shooting, I don’t
know what to say other than, as they
hid under their desks, journalists
of the Capital Gazette newspaper
sent tweets like the ones above and
reported on the incident.
As of Th ursday aft ernoon, there’s
not a lot known about what happened
in Maryland.
Th e shooter is in custody.
He’s a white male.
He had an issue with a story the
newspaper ran back in 2011.
He used a “long gun.”
But it’s not about guns because he
could have attacked that newsroom
with an axe or a knife or a bomb.
It’s about deciding that the solution
to confl ict is violence — and a society
that condones such a solution. It’s
also about setting a precedent that if
an individual feels their ideology is
being threatened by fact — or that
their facts are being skewed by fi ction
— during the commission of a crime,
that it validates their intent to do
harm.
Th at notion suggests that their
action is a measured choice rather
than just a form of primal justice.
We can’t kill people. Period. And
the penalty for writing something
that someone else disagrees should
never warrant a death sentence.
Th e most serious legal off ense a
journalist can commit within his
or her profession is to maliciously
defame someone through intentional
libel. However, for those indiscretions
the civilized course of action
mandated by the laws that govern our
society is to engage in due process —
in front of a judge, not the barrel of a
gun initiated by a jury of one.
I don’t know what happened in
Maryland.
But I do know if we allow space for
discourse that suggests the slightest
validation for these actions as a result
of the current rhetoric surrounding
journalism, then we’ve moved beyond
the arena of civilized debate and into
a tribalism that cannot support a free
society.
Five people are dead. I don’t know
what to say other than what Chase
Cook, a reporter at the Capital Gazette
tweeted on Th ursday aft ernoon: “I
can tell you this: We are putting out a
damn paper tomorrow.”
HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS
Oregon state
representatives
Oregon federal
representatives
• Sen. Floyd Prozanski
District 4 State Senator
PO Box 11511
Eugene, Ore. 97440
Phone: 541-342-2447
Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@
state.or.us
• Rep. Cedric Hayden
Republican District 7 State
Representative
900 Court St. NE
Salem, Ore. 97301
Phone: 503-986-1407
Website: www.leg.state.or.
us/hayden
Email: rep.cedrichayden@
state.or.us
• Rep. Peter DeFazio
(House of Representatives)
405 East 8th Ave.
#2030
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: defazio.house.gov/
contact/email-peter
Phone: 541-465-6732
• Sen. Ron Wyden
405 East 8th Ave., Suite 2020
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: wyden.senate.gov
Phone: (541) 431-0229
• Sen. Jeff Merkley
Email: merkley.senate.gov
Phone: 541-465-6750
C ottage G rove
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