Hillary Clinton said that anger is honorable.

And Robert Heinlein famously said that "an armed society is a polite society."

Is there tension between these two views?

How do we factor in extreme anger arising out of (or aggravated by) mental illness?

I often complain about how awful it is to be harangued at committee meetings. When I served on Berkeley's Police Review Commission, one of the worst things I had to endure was listen to long, incoherent, insulting attacks from furious activists bearing grudges. Some of these were professional, far-left, anti-police activists, but some were clearly deeply disturbed, and saw the Police Review Commission as their chance to lash out and deliver rambling lectures during the "public mike" sesssions. Berkeley had of course, long been a dumping ground for the mentally ill, and there was no question that many of these people were not in their right minds. (Parenthetically, the police do not want to deal with the mentally ill, nor do the courts, nor does anyone and I don't blame them. It's a no-win situation.)

On several occasions, the crowds got angry that the police themselves were ordered to leave "for reasons of officer safety" (a supreme irony, for it was our job to sit in judgment on them, and when they left, we were left unprotected in the face of some very angry, very crazy looking people). I don't know whether anyone has studied mob psychology, but when the mob contains crazy people (who will go ballistic and issue threats if the word "crazy" is even uttered), the only word to describe it is scary.

Naturally, when I read about a fatal shooting at a city meeting in Missouri, my interest was piqued. Sure enough, the shooter was a crazy man bearing a grudge, who obviously considered public meetings to be an outlet for his illness:

...the 7 p.m. meeting with about 30 people had just started when the shooter rushed in and opened fire with at least one weapon. He started yelling about shooting the mayor while walking around and firing, hitting police Officer Tom Ballman in the head, she said.

Public Works Director Kenneth Yost was shot in the head, and council members Michael H.T. Lynch and Connie Karr also were hit, she said.

The gunman also fired at City Attorney John Hessel, who tried to fight off the attacker by throwing chairs, Ms. McNichols told the newspaper. The shooter then moved behind the desk where the council sits and fired more shots at council members, she said.

"Tonight our fellow Missourians in the city of Kirkwood were terrorized by a senseless and horrific crime at an open government meeting," Gov. Matt Blunt said in a statement. "I join Missourians tonight in praying for the victims, their families and friends, and everyone in the community of Kirkwood."

Police haven't named the gunman, but Ms. McNichols identified him as Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton, whom she knows from covering the council. Mr. Thornton had previously disrupted meetings, she told the Post-Dispatch.

Mr. Thornton was well-known at City Hall, often making outrageous comments at public meetings, according to a 2006 article in the weekly Webster-Kirkwood Times.

The newspaper quoted Mr. Swoboda as saying in June 2006 that Mr. Thornton's contentious remarks over the years created "one of the most embarrassing situations that I have experienced in my many years of public service."

Mr. Swoboda's comments came during a council meeting attended by Mr. Thornton two weeks after the man was forcibly removed from the chambers. The mayor said at the time that the council considered banning Mr. Thornton from future meetings but decided against it.

"The city council has decided that they will not lower themselves to Mr. Thornton's level," Mr. Swoboda said at the meeting. "We will act with integrity and continue to deal with him at these council proceedings. However, we will not allow Mr. Thornton, or any other person, to disrupt these proceedings."

Mr. Thornton said during the meeting that he had been issued more than 150 tickets.

He was arrested twice and later convicted for disorderly conduct for outbursts at two council meetings in 2006, convinced the city was persecuting him. When allowed to speak during one meeting, he approached the podium with a posterboard with a picture of a donkey and began making harassing remarks about Mr. Swoboda.

In a federal lawsuit stemming from those meetings, Mr. Thornton, representing himself, insisted that Kirkwood officials violated his constitutional rights to free speech by barring him from speaking at the meetings. But a judge in St. Louis tossed out the suit Jan. 28, writing that "any restrictions on Thornton's speech were reasonable, viewpoint neutral, and served important governmental interests."

What about free speech for the mentally ill? Why is this an uncomfortable topic? I'm probably about as fanatic a supporter of the First Amendment as anyone, but is the idea to allow an exchange of views, so that all opinions can be heard, or is it to provide an outlet to vent for people who aren't taking their meds?

Is venting rage and insulting people because it makes you feel good what the founders had in mind with the First Amendment? Is public rage directed at a captive audience (which is precisely what officials at a public meetings are) the same thing as free expression of views?

And there's a double standard. Why do low-level commissioners have to sit and endure stuff that would get anyone arrested were it directed at judges or members of federal or state legislatures? In practice, that's the system we have (at least, in Berkeley.)

I ask these questions because I used to sit there helpless, and I felt like a punching bag for wild-eyed street activists who'd already been stirred up by professionals and were shaking with rage and ready to go off. One time I complained during a break to a fellow commissioner who was on the far left that I was sick and tired of simply sitting there and being yelled at and excoriated by speaker after speaker. (I was at the time in the center left -- which made me "right wing.") This man scolded me for my "undemocratic" attitude, saying that it was very important to provide these people with an "outlet," lest there be worse trouble in the form of rioting in the streets. The problem with that is that these people were the hard core rioters, and my feeling was that instead of calming them down, in some cases the public venting only served to stir them up. (They shut down a number of meetings, spraypainted "ROSEBUD"* on a police car on one occasion, and vandalized commissioners cars.)

The LA Times reports additional details. Apparently the shooter's brother is "OK" with what happened:

McCallie [a friend of the shooter] recalled Thornton holding up large posters with rude comments about city officials. "It got so bad," McCallie said, "the council members got scared enough to start having at least one police officer there."

An officer was stationed outside the council chambers Thursday evening.

He was one of the first killed.

Republican Gov. Matt Blunt called the tragedy a "senseless and horrific crime."

Thornton's brother, Gerald, told local television station KMOV that he saw justification for the bloodshed. "My brother went to war tonight with the people and government that were putting torment and strife into his life, and he ended it," Gerald Thornton said. "I'm OK with it."

It's not a pretty picture. I frankly don't know what the First Amendment implications are.

The LA Times has a little more about the judge's decision:

In June 2006, however, the mayor grew frustrated with Thornton's verbal abuse. Council members ordered law enforcement to remove him from the chambers.

Thornton responded with a federal lawsuit alleging that his right to free speech had been violated.

On Jan. 28 of this year U.S. District Judge Catherine D. Perry dismissed the lawsuit.

"Any restrictions on Thornton's speech were reasonable, viewpoint-neutral and served important governmental interests," Perry wrote. "Thornton does not have a 1st Amendment right to engage in irrelevant debate and to voice repetitive, personal, virulent attacks against Kirkwood and its city officials."

But suppose he had. Would that be constitutional? Right now I (along with many bloggers) might feel like voicing "repetitive, personal, virulent attacks" against Berkeley and its city officials for its insane anti-military bigotry, and I wouldn't want any judge to interfere with anyone's right to do that. Sure, I try to be polite and reasonable, and normally the "repetitive, personal, virulent attacks" aren't my style, but where in the First Amendment does it say anything about civility? (Especially when the other side has been uncivil?)

I see lots of issues, but no easy answers, and I'm sorry for that.

Might it be that the people who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights knew that "repetitive, personal, virulent attacks" were part and parcel of free speech?

I think it may be that this is one of the reasons that the founders, in their near-infinite wisdom, decided that the Second Amendment should follow the First.

The idea is to prevent shouting from leading to shooting.

* Laura Miller, aka "Rosebud Abigail DeNovo." Depending on your, um, point of view, she was either a mentally deranged woman who charged the police armed with a machete, or a dedicated activist who should be forever honored. The mob considered her a hero, much along the lines of the "martyred" anti-Israeli activist Rachel Corrie.

UPDATE: While there's discussion both in the comments and in the news reports that this incident involved (or at least touched upon) race, to the extent that is true, it only highlights my point about enabling and encouraging anger.

All racial issues aside, Thornton appears to have a long history as an exceedingly violent man with a history of assaultive behavior. (Criminal charges pending against him for an alleged assault on a restaurant owner last year.)

Was he allowed to possess a gun?

MORE: Here's an activist who is calling Charles Thornton a "hero":

Ben Gordon, an activist with the Rock Hill-Webster Groves Family Community Center, was perhaps the most outspoken person present, going as far as to call Thornton a "hero."

"He was a good man. The only problem was he thought he could survive in America against racist politics. And what we have here is an example of what will happen as long as people choose color over people," said Gordon. "I don't condone murder, but I tell you now, as long as there is separatism and unequal politics you'll see more of this. He did what any red-blooded American would do. If you go to Iraq and kill people that this government says is an enemy, then you're a hero. But if you're fighting in this country for the rights you are deserved and you've been told you are owed, then you are an insurgent. I say he is a hero."

There may have been a number of injustices, but my problem is when mentally unstable people are encouraged to imagine that they'll get justice if they get angry enough and loud enough about demanding their rights. The mentally unstable are not capable of controlling themselves the way a normal person would, and it is getting worse. Professors are afraid of being shot for giving bad grades, and employers are afraid to fire people. Grievances reign supreme. Even in politics, people who don't get their way are willing to overturn the chessboard willy-nilly. Maybe I'm too used to not getting my way, and that's made me cynical. But the way some people are talking remind me of the Berkeley People's Park activists who believed that the city had oppressed them, and if you didn't agree, you were literally the enemy.

God save us from activists.