The Hartford Courant has noticed -- five weeks after the
General Assembly, responding to the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School,
passed into law the most comprehensive gun restriction bill in the nation --
that criminal investigators have been somewhat laggard in issuing their final investigation
report.
Connecticut Commentary made note of the importance of the criminal report to the pending gun legislation way back in mid-January,
16 weeks before editorial writers at the
Courant were rousted from their Rip Van Winkle slumber.
It seemed to Connecticut Commentary a matter of common sense
that comprehensive legislation should follow – not precede – a bill imposing
severe restriction on both gun manufacturers and lawful gun owners in “Revolutionary
Connecticut,” so called, among other reasons, because Connecticut supplied then
Colonel George Washington’s army with munitions and war material, guns among
them.
Since passage of the legislation, some gun manufactures in Connecticut
have made tentative plans to leave the state; others have their eyes fastened
on the exit sign.
The bill, which makes illegal the purchase of the AR15 rifle,
the most popular and bestselling rifle in the United States, has provoked at
least one serious suit. Stag Arms, a Connecticut company that produces the
AR15, has been courted by the governors of other states. The company, treating
the legislation as a specification order, is in the process of developing a rejiggered
rifle that will satisfy the letter of the law.
The editorial notes
that while investigators had given assurances that a final report would be
completed by mid-June, “Now we are told by the state police that a final
investigative report won’t be ready until the end of September, more than nine
months after the crime was committed.”
The editorial quotes “the usually professional” state police
spokesman Paul Vance on the point: “Nobody ever said we had to have it done by
a certain time.”
The Courant’s patience, after so many months of delay,
apparently has been worn out.
“The ‘hide-the-information’ game being played by the police
and other state officials,” the paper declares, “is ridiculous. The only suspect
in this crime, Adam Lanza, killed 20 first graders, six female educators, his
mother and himself. It is almost certain there won’t be another arrest. The police
have little or no excuse for dragging this out… the penchant for secrecy
displayed by the state police, he governor and legislative leaders is deeply
troubling. It’s obvious they don’t trust the public.”
It certainly will not come as a shattering surprise to the editorial
writers at the Courant that the political course of events is determined
chiefly by politicians seeking some political benefit. The only question worth
asking at this point is the age old question “Qui bono?” Who stood to benefit by a delayed
investigation report?
And since the gun legislation already has been passed here
in Connecticut, we may put the question in the past tense: Who DID benefit by a
delayed report?
It should not take a conspiracy theorist to answer that question.
The answer is: The people who passed the legislation benefited from the delay.
In the absence of real data, the passage of the legislation was made possible
by raw appeals to emotion, the first and most effective political trick of the practiced
demagogue.
Comments
The things that haven't been released on Newtown yet such as the contents of medical records search warrants and 911/police logs probably indicate that both the state mental health system and police response to school emergencies had deficiencies. To produce this prior to Gov. Malloys gun control show would have completely muddied the water.