violence and the slippery slope

Three seemingly unrelated events occurred this past week:

1. While preparing my students for the written final exam for history of theatrical space/design, a student complained that courses (like mine) that require a fair amount of writing a) bring down his grade point average, and b) are a waste of time since they will not make him a better electrical engineer. After pointing out that a reason for "a" could be the assumption of "b," I explained the not-too-revolutionary concept that a functioning democracy requires good critical thinking skills on the part of its citizens.

2. 26 women and children were killed by a deeply troubled individual with a semi-automatic assault weapon.

3. The first public figure "brave" enough to defend the current federal laws on gun ownership after the massacre--Louie Gohmert, Republican, congressman from Texas--argued (via fallacy) that restrictions on assault rifles are wrong because "Once you start drawing the line, where do you stop?"
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If more U.S. citizens demanded sound reasoning from their leaders, perhaps life in the U.S. would be less absurdly violent.