Opinion: Will the Tucson Massacre Change Anything?

Nothing. Nothing at all. That's the likely -- no, the certain -- outcome of the national conversation that continues days after the slaughter in Tucson, Ariz., that left six dead and 13, including the apparent main target, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, wounded.

Politicians, law enforcement officials and pundits have been trying to unpack the combustible mix of factors that allegedly led suspect Jared Loughner to open fire, and what steps could have been taken to prevent it. Mental illness appears to be high on the list of the former, and tighter gun control laws high on the latter.

But what's likely to be done on either of these fronts? Consider what happened after previous massacres.

Like Loughner, Seung-Hui Cho (the 23 year-old college student who murdered 32 at Virginia Tech in 2007), and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (who killed 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in 1999) all exhibited early warning signs of mental-emotional difficulties and violent aspirations.

But those earlier massacres inspired no substantive rethinking of the country's approach to mental health.

Some, no doubt, would like to see a loosening of laws that would make it easier to institutionalize adults against their consent. But such a system is at least as likely to ensnare innocents as sociopaths.

The more rational approach is also more complicated and multifaceted: identifying and addressing the anomie that largely seems at the root of those problems. But while Congress may be up for reading aloud the Constitution, I doubt many of its members are interested in thumbing through Emile Durkheim's "Suicide."

If root problems aren't going to be addressed, then the country would do well to make it harder for would-be killers to act upon their desires. Indeed, it was the assassination of another member of Congress, presidential aspirant Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, that propelled the last sweeping gun-control legislation, the 1968 Gun Control Act. (Among other measures, the act denied guns to the mentally ill.)

But since then, gun-control laws have been scaled back. Rep. Giffords even boasted of her proficiency with a Glock pistol similar to the one that put a bullet through her head. Such is the strength of the gun lobby, with its maximalist interpretation of the Second Amendment, that the likely outcome of the mass shooting, in Arizona at least, is to make it even easier for people to buy and carry guns.

Instead, much of the discussion surrounding the Tucson shooting is focused on political recriminations. Was Loughner, who championed gold- and silver-backed currency, a tea party devotee? Was he a liberal, pot-smoking nihilist? Was he incited to violence by incendiary political rhetoric?

Sarah Palin is a semiliterate, thuggish national embarrassment, but she's not responsible for Loughner's actions. And while calls for increased civility among politicians are always welcome, they are almost always in vain. In any case, kinder, gentler political rhetoric won't prevent future Tucsons. Perhaps nothing can.

But to even attempt to do so would take a more serious, learned and empathetic conversation than Americans are accustomed to having. (Whatever happened to those national conversations about race?)

As long as that remains the case, it's better to forgo the impotent hand-wringing and simply shrug and move on.

Paul Wachter, co-founder of Againstdumb.com, writes for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic and The Nation, among other magazines.