I know who killed Benazir Bhutto," the woman said, as she grabbed a shirt, then a sweater, then a jacket, then a coat, gathering them with two arms and pulling the bundle toward her frantically, as if to create a shield of clothing. She backed up on the porch of the house, almost losing her balance, and grabbed a water bottle and a purse off a table. "I would very much like to get a cab. Can you call me a cab? I have tickets for the Meyerhoff tonight, and I need to get there! The Pakistani guy was supposed to come back. I gave him $200!"

The woman, in her 40s and dressed in black slacks and a gray sweat shirt, was barefoot on a February day, waiting on the porch of a house in Baltimore County. She'd shown up there because the place was familiar to her, and because, for the moment, she had no other place to go -- or because voices had told her to go there. She'd been hospitalized again recently. After her release, she went to a hotel, then to the house, paying a cab driver to take her there. She carried her belongings in a suitcase and some clothing under her arms. When she spoke, her lips quivering, she seemed to be on the verge of tears.

The woman needed help. She was lost. Someone at the house called 911.

Soon two police cars pulled up. One of the officers, with a brush-cut and mustache, carried an order for a psychiatric evaluation. It had been signed by a judge the night before at the request of a relative.

The one with the court order, the older of the two officers, called to the woman and explained why he was there. The woman moved toward the officers. She did not seem to fear them. In fact, their presence seemed to comfort her. Except for one outburst -- "I need to get to the Meyerhoff tonight! All my clothes are in storage!" -- she did not raise her voice. She was calm and listened to the lead officer.

"I have to look in your bag now," the officer said.

She told him he would find titanium scissors, and he did.

"Are you on any medication right now, ma'am?" the lead officer asked.

"For my blood pressure," she answered.

"That's all?" the officer pressed.

"That's all," the woman said.

It's hard to imagine, in this age of pharmaceutical therapy, that a woman so lost had not been prescribed something to keep her stable and healthy, something to help her think and function rationally. Of course, in order for medication to be effective, the patient has to take it, and that's where the breakdown often comes.

As I watched the county officers address this troubled woman, explain about the court order, then take her away, I had a few thoughts, and they went something like this, in this order: How lucky we are to have control of our minds. How lucky we are for healthy families free from such chronic, crushing, draining conditions.

And, right after those thoughts came this one: Lucky this did not turn violent.

Sorry. But there it is.

In this nation, violence seems to be endlessly possible.

While there was none in the brief drama that I witnessed the other day, there was at least a concern -- but only because of the availability of weapons and the extraordinary freedoms we have to purchase them. This is the society we've allowed to evolve.

In the next few minutes, as I drove away, the car radio had fresh news out of Northern Illinois University: "Authorities confirmed that [gunman] Stephen P. Kazmierczak had recently stopped taking medication."

This time it was the fourth-deadliest shooting spree on an American college campus. This time six were killed; this time the gunman killed himself. Last week, it was a city hall in suburban St. Louis, and six dead, including two police officers and the gunman. Just before that, it was a private home in Cockeysville, and four dead -- the mother, father and brothers of Nicholas Browning, 16. Last spring it was Virginia Tech, and 33 dead, including the gunman.

The gun makes all this possible. Keep guns out of the hands of these potential killers and they do not kill -- or at least they do not kill as many.

But this nation refuses to take the subject up, even in the wake of horrific mass killings.

The guns-at-any-cost crowd criticizes such talk as "opportunistic," or they say that it "politicizes tragedy."

When al-Qaida in Iraq makes mentally impaired women and disabled children carry bombs into crowded markets, it is an abomination before any God you can come up with, and we all condemn it. But here we allow people who are unstable or whose sanity turns on medication to purchase as much firepower as they want.

We've seen the results several times now, and yet the political class, which lives in fear of the gun crowd, refuses to reopen the discussion.

We're willing to accept guns in the hands of anyone -- in the most recent case, in the hands of a college student who was rejected by the U.S. military, because of "psychological reasons" -- rather than reasonable limitations on gun availability. Until we refuse to live this way, this kind of violence remains endlessly possible.

dan.rodricks@baltsun.com