So many issues warranting commentary. Favoring quantity over depth this week, let’s quickly touch on a number of topics du jour.

First up has to be the tragic massacre last Monday at the south Boulder King Soopers. This is being written but 24 hours later, and it will be a number of long days until publication. Surely, we will come to know much more in the interim.

Beyond the utter sadness, if there is one thing such mass shootings have in common, it lies in the immediate compulsion to race to political corners. Following the Atlanta attacks the week prior, many instinctively, reflexively went for the “white supremacy” narrative despite scant evidence that it was necessarily the motive.

Now, in the instant aftermath of Colorado’s latest atrocity, before we even knew the number of victims or their names, the entirely predictable cries rang out for urgent gun control legislation.

To be clear, I am no gun lover. I have never owned one. I never even liked firing one as a kid back in summer camp eons ago. If the Colorado legislature sees fit to stipulate a mandatory waiting period before a gun purchase, there will be no objection on my end. Ditto for clamping down on weapons with automatic feeding and firing mechanisms. Ditto at the federal level.

However, it is important to be sober and cognizant that there are no easy fixes. Colorado is already quite high on the list of states for the stringency of its gun laws. It is estimated that there are just shy of 400 million firearms across the country. Roughly 40 percent of Americans live in a household with a gun.

The plain fact is that we live in a highly armed nation in an angry, unsettled time. Legislation has a place. But it will never be a magical curative. This is a cultural issue as much as a regulatory one. Those on the left who often talk about addressing “root causes” of various social dilemmas might apply that approach to this epidemic of violence. Everyone on all sides would be advised to hold their fire, pun intended, in the immediate shock of such an incident until the facts are clear.

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Moving along, just as spring follows winter (soon, please), infamous Colorado baker Jack Phillips finds himself back in court. This time, he and his Masterpiece Cakeshop are being sued for declining to bake a cake to celebrate a gender transition.

At this point, in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in his favor and holding the Colorado Civil Rights Commission to account for its overt hostility to Phillips’s religious convictions, such repeated, contrived litigation is far more about harassment than legal principle.

Public opinion along with the law and social mores have moved at a rapid clip around gay marriage and this broader collection of issues. Our family is but one of millions with a personal stake and gratitude for this notable shift.

But there is something to be said for minority rights and viewpoints. I do not share Phillips’s credo. But how do his beliefs harm me? There is no shortage of bakeries, many presumably within close proximity to Phillips’s shop, which will gladly bake a cake for any occasion. What does the plaintiff in this latest tussle, the seemingly very angry and litigious transgender attorney Autumn Scardina, get out of coercing this lone baker to violate his conscience?

Our pluralistic society would be better off if many more among us honored conscientious objections. Or even just understood that there will always be slow adopters. Disagree with their viewpoint; vociferously so. But, perhaps, exhibit a bit of grace, especially in victory, and back away from the browbeating, strong-arming and suppression.

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Which brings us to the scene, both in Denver and in Washington, D.C., of security fences walling off our state and national capitol buildings.

Of course, security is critical; even paramount. But it cannot be the only consideration. It has been heartening to see the backlash here in Colorado, led by a number of high officials from previous years, to the premature announcement of the possible fencing of the State Capitol.

What does it say about our democracy if such buildings are to become less open and less accessible than their counterpart structures in far less democratic parts of the world?

Clearly, the rag-tag insurrection of January 6th was a shocking breach. It is critical to react, but not to overreact. Put in place reasonable systems and precautions. Use technology as possible and prudent. But do not turn January 6th into September 11th. If we ever sacrifice public access to the very centerpieces of our government, something irrecoverable will have been forfeited.

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Lastly, a note about a low-on-the-radar political fight that may soon make the front pages. In Iowa this past November, Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks won a seat in Congress, defeating Democrat Rita Hart by a mere six votes.

Hart claims irregularities in the vote count sufficient to reverse this result. However, instead of properly seeking remedy through the election officials and courts in her state, the losing Hart has turned to the Democratic majority in Congress to overturn the result and install her while ousting Rep. Miller-Meeks. Hart bases her petition on the Constitutional authority given to each house of Congress in seating its own members.

Hart and other partisans are playing with fire. And risking a troublesome precedent. Even if it now seems that calmer, wiser heads may prevail.

Any election that close will be disputed. But the venue for that resolution is back at home through the processes of the state. Once the state, in this case Iowa, sends an official certification of the election to Congress, it should be honored.

Wasn’t that the stated position of one Democrat after another just a few months ago when Donald Trump lamely and tardily tried to overturn the certified results?