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| Michael Ross |
Democrat Governor Ned Lamont, we find from a news
report, “has been pushing for gun restrictions earlier this year, but
the recent legislative session expired in early May without action.” The report
quotes him: “… there are so many illegal guns on the street right now. I’d like
to think we could have done a better job here in Connecticut and send a message
far afield, especially when it comes to those ghost guns.”
Was Lamont suggesting that the elimination of ghost guns
would have prevented the most recent slaughter of the innocents in Texas? Was
he suggesting that black-market gunrunners would cease and desist their already
illegal activities should the national legislature pass gun laws favored by
Blumenthal and Murphy?
One almost feels indecent in pointing out that ghost guns
played no part in the assault on elementary schools in Texas or Sandy Hook. The
elimination of ghost guns may provide a solution to some problem – but not this
problem.
Another story in today’s paper, “Schumer
rips GOP after school shooting in Texas,” reports that Schumer has
implored “his Republican colleagues to cast aside the powerful gun lobby,” the National
Rifle Association (NRA), “and reach across the aisle for even a modest
compromise bill. Schumer is quoted: “If the slaughter of school children can’t
convince Republicans to buck the NRA, what can we do?”
In the face of a still raw mass murder, Schumer might try to
temper his politicking. Neither of the mass murderers in Texas or Sandy Hook
were responsible gun owners, and it is doubtful that either were dues paying
members of the NRA.
Generally we do not blame bank robberies on banking
associations. Schumer is asking us to believe that, in respect of mass
shootings, it is better to do something – anything, though his plan may not
reduce mass murders or urban killings -- than to “do nothing at all.”
Following the Sandy Hook massacre, Connecticut legislators,
arguing that “something must be done,” passed a slew of legislation regulating
gun sales. Those laws have had no appreciable effect on multiple killings in
Hartford Connecticut, the seat of the state’s General Assembly. And there are
those in the state who argue that if you cannot pass a bill preventing
14-year-old-children in urban areas from shooting other 14-year-old-children in
urban areas, you will not be successful in curbing mass shootings anywhere in
the state.
What might such a bill look like?
In Sandy Hook and Texas, both killers were young men, 18 to
21, from broken households who spend an inordinate amount of time on the
internet indulging their violent tendencies.
The Sandy Hook killer shot his mother, stole her guns, an
AR15, a shot gun, and an automatic pistol with which he killed himself, and
shot his way through the front entrance to Sandy Hook elementary school.
He was a loner, monkish, somewhat withdrawn from school life
and life affirming social interactions. He had no arrest record and there were
no reports that he was under mental duress.
The Texas murderer procured his guns legally, shot his
grandmother in the face and proceeded to an elementary school that was, so to
speak, a gun free zone, where he locked himself in a room with his victims and
opened fire.
What you must do to prevent such occurrences would simply
repeal most of the cherished liberties enjoyed by a citizens who would under no
circumstances enter a school and kill multiple young children.
In both cases, there were no fathers in broken homes to
police lawless sons. Blumenthal, Schumer and Murphy have
yet to suggest a law that would air drop stern and protective fathers into such
households. Nor have they suggested that the freedom to visit internet sites
contributing to moral anarchy across the nation should be curtailed, because
such laws would violate First Amendment rights, cherished by reporters and
political commentators.
Nor have partisan politicians – Murphy, in particular, now seems
eager to entangle all Republicans in the U.S. Senate in a far-fetched moral complicity in mass
murders -- suggested sensible precautions, the hardening of access
to schools, for instance. We post armed interveners in banks because we wish to
prevent bank robberies and secure valuable assets. Are our children less
valuable than our bank account savings?
In the Texas mass murder case, we now know, the school was
not properly hardened to prevent a mass assault; the school’s guard was not present
at the time of the attack; multiple doors were unlocked; police waited too long
before storming the building; neither children nor school staff were taught how
to respond in case of such attacks; the perimeter fence surrounding the school
was easily penetrated; there was no centrally activated room locking system
available – in other words, mistakes
were made.
It may be nearly impossible to prevent every instance of
mass murder in schools, just as it is impossible to prevent all bank robberies.
But illegal activities in both cases can be justly punished. And the most
successful tool of mitigation, we know, is the swift and certain imprisonment
of convicted criminals. Just punishment does deter crime – which is
why Senators such as Blumenthal, Murphy and Schumer provide us with an endless
stream of laws designed to frustrate unwonted activity.
But, as yet, no one is screaming from the rooftops that just
punishment delayed is just punishment denied. Would Blumenthal and Murphy
welcome a reinstitution of Connecticut’s death
penalty for mass murderers?
Likely not, but why not? Connecticut’s Supreme Court years
ago found that even a just capital punishment violated an assumed moral
resistance on the part of Connecticut citizens against capital punishment.
Since then, capital punishment has become a very back bench issue in
Connecticut politics, the legislative equivalent of the sin that dare not speak
its name. Some suspect that moral exemplars among our politicians no longer
believe in the utility of just punishment. It is much easier politically to find
guns rather than murders guilty of and punishable for mass murder.
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