Bullshitting About The Scalise Shooting

I've got work to do, so I've gotta ignore this story right now, but I foolishly looked at the comments at the Post. One reason our public discussions are so damn stupid is that you can pretty much whatever you want with--usually--no penalty for being wrong.
   A lot of the things being said there support predictions (e.g. This is motivated by liberal hate-mongering; and: Got a gun because of GOP policies, etc.). Imagine how much more sensible such discussions would be if we had to place a wager whenever we said something like this. When there's no price to pay for being stupid, is it any surprise that this sort of thing immediately devolves into idiocy?