Posted on 02/17/2018 6:49:23 AM PST by Simon Green
As usual, it seemed to come out of nowhere. And, as usual, it didn’t.
The murderer who took the lives of 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Fla., was on everybody’s radar, from the school authorities to the local police to the FBI, which failed to follow its own protocols when a person close to the future killer called to warn the bureau that he was contemplating a school massacre. Everybody knew, nobody did anything.
What should be done?
Gun control, the Left says, always, offering ideas that range from the trivial to the patently unconstitutional. Whatever the outrage of the day is, the Left’s answer is to seek to ban whatever implement was used in it: Until the murders in Las Vegas, nobody outside of gun-nut circles had heard of a bump stock, but bump stocks became Public Enemy No. 1. In the debate over so-called assault weapons, every feature from the functional to the cosmetic has had its turn as the deification of evil.
The Parkland killer didn’t use some exotic weapon. He used a ubiquitous .223-caliber AR-pattern rifle, the most common sporting and target-shooting rifle in the United States. Attempts to mythologize the AR as an exotic weapon of war are reliably absurd. Dr. Ernest E Moore, writing in Time, displays the usual ignorant fear-mongering about the AR: “An assault rifle is designed to deliver fatal wounds to multiple individuals within a short time period; it has no other purpose,” he writes. “It’s unclear what other purpose it could serve, given how and why it was made.” In reality, AR-style rifles are used in everything from small-game hunting to competitive marksmanship. Dr. Moore and other gun-control advocates reliably elide the differences, but the civilian AR rifle is a very different instrument from its fully automatic cousins issued to U.S. armed forces.
What kind of gun control might have prevented the Florida killing? For all the talk of “moderate” and “common-sense” reforms, plausible regulatory approaches to preventing such acts of mass violence are few and far between. The Florida shooter had no criminal record and had not been judged mentally incompetent, and so he was able to purchase rifles and other long guns legally, passing a background check in the process. Given the fact that the local police and the FBI both failed to look seriously into him after receiving credible warnings of his murderous intent, it is difficult to imagine that a clerk at a sporting-goods store is going to be much more effective staging an intervention at the point of sale.
Some gun-control advocates would like to ban the sale of semiautomatic rifles and handguns — which is to say, the majority of rifles and the great majority of handguns — but there already are millions of those in circulation. These would have to be confiscated (as they were in Australia) in order to make such a program effective. The prohibition of most small arms and the seizure of millions of firearms already in private hands might be a lot of things, but it is not “moderate” or “common sense.” It would be a radical step, and one that almost certainly would be found to be unconstitutional.
All long guns combined — from granddad’s duck gun to the scary-looking black instruments that so repulse our progressive friends — represent a vanishingly small share of the weapons used in violent crimes in the United States, something on the order of 2 percent in a typical year. In spite of the media hysteria, violent crimes involving so-called assault rifles are so rare that the FBI data don’t even break them out into a separate category.
The left still feels that using unarmed adults to shield students from gunfire is the best defense.
FBI and Law Enforcement control IS the answer. Get control of both and make them do their jobs.
Somewhere, in every reporter’s file cabinet is a folder of “ready-to-serve”, anti-gun (gun control) stories; templates ready to be filled in with the most recent “who, what, when, where, and why” of a shooting.
On the other side, there are ready-made templates on how “gun control” is not the answer.
I see this charade played out, ad infinitum, every time there is a shooting, of any kind.
To you anti gun people...we heard you the last 50 times; to the pro-gun types, don’t waste your breath, or ink, on rebutting these people...they are in a liberal induced trance and cannot be revived.
This will go on for several days, or even weeks; then, when the anti’s see that there’s no rush to abolish the 2nd Amendment, and their fight is fruitless, they’ll fade back into Russian collusion stories and taking digs at Melania’s wardrobe.
Meanwhile, the rest of us need to chill, pray, and go about our daily lives as well as possible.
This narrative has been pushed for a long time. I listen to a lot of old time radio, and yesterday heard an episode of "Suspense" from the 1950's. It involved a shopkeeper who had successfully defended his business by killing armed robbers three times. The police's reaction:
"Couldn't you just give them what they want instead of killing them? Why don't you shut your business down, maybe move somewhere safer?"
Naturally, the episode end with him killing his son coming home from college on a surprise visit. Knock, knock...."Anybody home?" BANG!
When I was a child we did not have these problems. What has changed. 1. Single parent families 2. Penal system changed to correction system. 3. Parents assumed their kids were in error. 4. Parents blame everyone but the child 5. If you did something wrong any individual could tell your parents 6. Now parents wait till the whole village complains snakes. 7. Spankings were expect, now they are verboten. 8. Children were taught to respect their elders.
9. People went to church and were not called mentally ill. 10. The ten commandments were driven home. Etc. Boy progressive liberal changes serve us so well
Hololophophic liberals have never handled a gun or rifle.
They don’t know what they’re talking about.
The truth is long gun crime in the US is so rare the FBI doesn’t even list them.
Parkand massacre notwithstanding.
I don't know. I'd still like to see some kind of due diligence or fiduciary responsibility legislation enacted on the "press."
It's only "common sense." If they have a Constitutionally mandated roll, the scope and limits of that roll need to be defined.
If the Obama administration has taught us anything, it has taught us the left prizes nothing more than taking away our ability to tell them “no.”
Gun control is the ultimate expression of that imperative.
The answer isn’t important. The Agenda is important.
God control is the answer. Nothing is perfect, but the more people raised in a humble and kind home, with a God fearing mother and father, following the teachings of the Bible (both Old and New Testament) will give us a higher quality citizenry. Of course I know it will never happen.
Alas this time there will be new laws passed. Only time will tell what they are but they will happen.
This has been tried, the Supreme court rules in favor of the 2nd every time. A law doesn’t negate a Constitutional right/amendment.
“An assault rifle is designed to deliver fatal wounds to multiple individuals within a short time period; it has no other purpose,...”
So will the Remington Model 8 made in 1906 with an extended magazine.
http://14544-presscdn-0-64.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/model8ranger3.jpg
Never was, never will be.
Be thankful Hillary is not in the White House as Australian style gun confiscation would be right around the corner.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
