After a tragedy, such as Orlando, how long should we wait to engage in serious discussion?
Serious discussion such as gun control, anti-terrorist measures, placing blame, and so on.
Well, this is kind of a multifaceted issue.
First, it's context. Are you in the midst of a conversation focused around how to address/deal with situations like this? Or are you in the midst of a conversation talking about what's happening and the new facts coming out or how people are emotionally responding? For the former, it makes a lot of sense to bring up discussions of gun regulation or anti-terrorism measures. For the latter, it comes off as far more self serving and politicizing.
Second, in terms of time, I'd say is it something that's on going or over? Has all, or at least, most of the facts came out or is there still a ton of speculation going on? I think this has a large impact. I'm generally of the mind that it should definitely hold off until the issue is over, and that it's prudent to wait until most of the facts are clarified as well, at the very least.
Third, and it plays into #2, is how actually relevant to this specific instance is the "discussion" being had. For example, let's look at two matters with this current shooting. On one side, you have some on the right trying to immediately leverage this into a discussion about refugees and immigrants from counties associated with ISIS or Islamic extremism. This, despite the fact that the individual in question was a native born citizen raised here in the US. On the flip side, you have some on the left holding this up as evidence that we must deny firearms to anyone on the Terror Watch list, despite the fact that such legislation would in no way have stopped this from happening as Omar had been removed from said watch list for 2 years prior to purchasing the weapons in question. In both instances, the "discussion" being had is not ACTUALLY about the situation going on; it is simply leveraging the emotional impact of the situation going on to push an agenda that was already held prior to this and of which had no real bearing on the case in question.
By and large, its a case by case type of thing of looking at the "discussion" and asking yourself how much of the reference to the situation at hand is being done for legitimate reasons and how much is being done simply to capitalize on the emotional impact of a particular issue in the midst of it occurring. If it's appears to be aimed more at the latter, then it's less reasonable and more apt to be ignored. If it's the latter, it's the difference between attempting to capitalize on the dead as opposed to truly evaluating it in hopes of taking steps to potentially help prevent a similar instance in the future.
