Now what? After the tragedy in Tucson, Ariz. — six dead, including a federal judge, and 14 shot, including a congresswoman left as a national martyr, a symbol of the evil people are capable of heaping on each other — now what do we do as a nation? We’ve lived through more than a week of people throwing barbs tinged with poisonous political rhetoric at each other (Republican rantings made the gunman snap! No, it was the tea party! It was intolerant liberal politics that made him pull the trigger!), and now that the initial vomiting of invectives is over, can we please just take a breath?

We need to not be distracted from solving crimes and figuring out what drives people to mass murder.