So true. God-given rights like free speech and the private ownership of firearms - or knives, or pea shooters etc. - come with risks. It’s how a nation addresses those risks that tells you about the end-game of the governors.
First, a primer on risks. In the world of investing, there is a concept of risk-minimization whereby you lower your risk of loss or volatility by spreading your eggs across several baskets. However, one risk you cannot diversity away is the "systematic risk" or the risk inherent in the system...call it market risk or whatever, the basic reality is some baseline level of risk will ALWAYS exist, and you can't avoid it.
This is Sowell, encapsulated.
Now, with that foundation, let’s consider how a nation manages the risks that come with rights.
Laws that support, life, liberty, and property are right and proper. Some laws act as a deterrent and will stop people on the margin from doing bad things...this is akin to diversifying away the non-systematic risk.
However, at some baseline level, in a relatively free society of 340MM people, you'll always have a few pathological maniacs who will kill. Thus, random acts of violence are the systematic risk of a free society.
Sure, maybe some laws can help, but in large measure unless you weld a GoPro to the heads of 340MM people with central monitoring in DC (and even that wouldn't be perfect...after all people in jail still get drugs and weapons), psychos gonna psycho.
It is therefore quite telling, when pathological politicians propose legislation in the midst of a crisis/crystalized systematic risk, that is in truth aimed at the systematic risk. By definition, a nation can't evade/will always have systematic risk.
What does that’s tell us? That the legislators and supporters of these systematic risk “elimination” proposals want to erode the freedoms of law-abiding citizens.