Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and host of the
Instapundit web site, has penned what I consider
a thoughtful and reasoned column about the aftermath of the shooting. You may or may not agree with him, but I think you'll have to agree that he's "thoughtful and reasoned", especially considering that he's not calling for anyone to be killed (unlike the gun control crowd):
When Twenty Minutes Is Forever. According to the CNN timeline for the Sandy Hook tragedy, "Police and other first responders arrived on scene about 20 minutes after the first calls." Twenty minutes. Five minutes is forever when violence is underway, but 20 minutes -- a third of an hour -- means that the "first responders" aren't likely to do much more than clean up the mess...
Is Hate A Liberal Value? A 20-year-old lunatic stole some guns and killed people. Who's to blame? According to a lot of our supposedly rational and tolerant opinion leaders, it's . . . the NRA, a civil-rights organization whose only crime was to oppose laws banning guns. (Ironically, it wasn't even successful in Connecticut, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation)...
Calling people murderers and wishing them to be shot sits oddly with claims to be against violence. The NRA -- like the ACLU, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers or Planned Parenthood -- exists to advocate policies its members want. It's free speech. The group-hate directed at the NRA is ugly and says ugly things about those consumed by it.
He goes on, ending with this:
Ah, yes, the government is broke. And nobody seems to have a plan to deal with it. No wonder they'd rather have us talking about gun control.
Good article.
3. We Don't Deal Well With Crazy People. Clayton Cramer makes this point in his recent book on the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, but the evidence is all around us. Parents of mentally-ill adults have a terrible time. Many mentally ill -- especially men -- wind up in jails, which have basically taken over from the old state mental hospitals, now shut down. We need to look at this again.
ReplyDeleteDarren
Last week I was in a Facebook debate with a fellow cop who is (simplifying his view) in favor of gun control. One of points made by a 3rd person was he wanted psyche tests for gun possession. OK, how you gonna do that? Do you want a 18 year old wanting to buy a 22 rifle to submit to a written psyche test of 750 questions? An exam by a shrink or social worker? if so, how will this be set up? Who pays for it? If you want them at gun shows, will you have the psyche staff there? Not to mention you know how much power this could give the government to strip people of the their Right to Bear Arms. There are millions of people “depressed” out there which is a chronic psyche condition. If all of a sudden this was declared a condition that prohibited weapon’s possession, that would make millions of Americans criminals instantly.
BTY this wouldn’t have stopped the punk in Conn because he stole his mother’s guns. But lets not let facts get in the way of a good story.
Excellent article.
Gun control only works if you're trying to oppress someone.
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