Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, December 20, 1994                   TAG: 9501200025
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THRESHOLDS

Or perhaps everyone has been hurt. The shooting raised by one more unhealthy notch the threshold of violence required for society to be shocked.

In October, too, bullets were fired at the White House. The October incident, unlike Saturday's, resulted in the arrest of a suspect, who had been captured by bystanders. In September, a small plane crashed on the south grounds of the White House; its pilot was killed.

So when more bullets were fired this past weekend, it was almost ho-hum news: just another symbol of a presidency besieged. Been there, seen that. Besides, it did happen, after all, in Washington, D.C. - a city where gunfire is often heard; where bullets often "rain," sometimes randomly.

The climb in the shock threshold is not only about crime and violence.

Twenty or so years ago, visible homelessness was regarded as the sign of a Third World country. Today, "street people" are stepped over as a normal, everyday occurrence in cities across America.

Forty or so years ago, few would have conceived the notion that huge patches of some of the nation's biggest cities would become burnt-out shells. Yet there they are: in too deplorable a state for too long to get many people worked up about them.

In such a context, the emergence of crime as a potent political issue may be a positive development; it suggests that the shockability factor hasn't entirely vanished, that a drive-by shooting is not yet as routine as a drive-in restaurant.

The challenge is to not let that concern regress into nothing more than resignation and revenge, to not give up hope that crime can be reduced and prevented, and made shocking again.