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The Courant Awakens


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

dmoelling said…
The Courant seems willing to note that the delay 'helps Conspiracy Nuts' in a blog post on their site today. A long time ago I took a psychological test required for access to nuclear power plant sites. One of the questions was something like 'I feel people are spying on me'. If you answered yes it could trigger a review. One of the groups that failed en mass were recent Soviet emigres. The reviewers decided that in their case, just because they were being followed around, they were not paranoid!

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.
Don Pesci said…
That’s probably right. Plus, much of the information likely would have turned the pending legislation in a different direction. Nation legislation is still what William James might have called a “live option,” and the criminal report just might put a crimp in that effort as well. It looks like all the legislation might have been politically driven, but we won’t know until the final criminal report has been issued. At that point, it might be possible for curious yellow journalists to ask the right questions.
Don Pesci said…
Also, rabid conspiracy theorists have so poisoned the well that it is well-nigh impossible to theorize on the subject without opening yourself to charges that you think the trilateral commission is Mr. Vance’s mentor.

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