Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Almost immediately after a gunman entered a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas and mowed down the congregation with what the media refers to imprecisely as “an assault weapon” – what weapon used in the commission of a mass murder is not an assault weapon? -- Senators Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy of Connecticut unscrolled their pitch: 1) assault weapons are murderous, 2) prayer is pointless and 3) send campaign cash our way. Prescinded from their analysis was the nub of the matter – the truth which, like the devil, lies in the details.

“The government doesn’t care about profits, which is why it’s always in the red. It doesn’t care much about service either, which is why there are long lines at Connecticut’s Department of Motor Vehicles. It cares only about votes.” – The Cynic at the Breakfast Table, a work in progress. On Thursday, Hillary Clinton came to Hartford, not so long ago the murder capital of New England, to agitate indirectly against Democratic presidential rival Bernie Sanders – AND FIRE ARMS. Mr. Sanders is from Vermont and does not suffer from hoplophobia , an irrational fear of guns. In the hinterland of Vermont, guns are used to shoot game; in one-party urbanscapes such as Hartford, guns are used by drug dealers, gangbangers and young school kids to kill rivals and innocent by-standers. Anti-gun Democratic politicians now seek to forestall urban gun crimes by allowing lawyers to sue gun manufacturers – good for the lawyers, bad for law-abiding gun owners and good for politicians wh...

It has been said of President Barrack Obama that he is a perpetual campaigner, a remark not intended as a compliment. The charge has been made in connection with Mr. Obama’s foreign policy. To cite but one example, the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan was an early campaign promise the consequences of which have proven to be exceedingly dissapointing.

When Governor Dannel Malloy first came into office, some commentators who had paid close attention to his campaign assumed he was ready to vigorously attack spending. He had often enough during his campaign batted around the catch phrase “fair share.” It was generally understood that everyone in Connecticut would, under the Malloy dispensation, be expected to contribute his “fair share” in taxes and give-backs, and most people expected, after the new governor had imposed on taxpayers the largest tax increase in state history, that the consumption side of government would see proportional reductions in spending. The tax increase was immediate and, some would argue, devastating to an economy in the grip of a prolonged recession: See President Jack Kennedy’s speech to the Economic Club of New York. Mr. Malloy’s prospective savings, as it turned out, would be distant and amorphous. Who could have guessed, as the Malloy campaign rolled out, that the governor would soon become...

Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky released on Monday a 40 page preliminary report on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. He has promised to release the full report numbering 2,000 pages sometime or other, perhaps in May. Release of the full report has now been twice delayed. What, some people now are wondering, is the purpose of the preliminary report? There are no shockers in the document. Very little of the released information, now certified as correct by the preliminary report, can be construed as adversely affecting a prosecution, and indeed the preliminary report confirms that prosecutions were unlikely months ago:

The following is a media release from Shelia Mathews of AbleChild : Ablechild vs.ChiefMedical Examiner: FIC Docket No: 2013-197, Attorney: Patrick B. Kwanashie, AAG (Office of the Attorney General) argues release of Adam Lanza records to public “can cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications”. Ablechild argues that lack of transparency comprises informed consent and puts public health “at risk”. December 14, 2012, 20 year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children and six adults in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the village of Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut. He committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky has been keeping information concerning the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School close to his vest, and state police spokesman Lieutenant Paul Vance has countless times told everyone in Connecticut why: “There is an ongoing investigation.” The criminal investigation has been ongoing ever since Adam Lanza, armed to the teeth with weapons he appropriated from his mother, shot his way into the school and murdered 20 young children and 6 staff members. Mr. Lanza also murdered his mother before leaving on his murderous mission.

A recent Courant editorial, “ Sandy Hook Panel's Focus Turns From Guns To School Safety ,” begins with the following lede: “Officials can turn a school into an armed camp, in an effort to make it safer, with metal detectors, bulletproof glass, armed guards and armed teachers. Or they can take a different approach.” Naturally, the Courant, which is averse to “armed camps,” prefers a different approach. Schools “can promote good basic building security measures for access and corridor control. They can train faculty and staff to embrace the post - 9/11 mantra: If you see something, say something. They can make smaller-scale changes that are easier to implement and pay for, such as more security cameras and, importantly, help for troubled students.”

State police spokesman Lt. Paul Vance, the keeper of the Sandy Hook secrets, condemned leaks in the investigation of the mass murder of Newtown students, ‘but won’t say they’re acting to root them out,” according to a story in the Journal Inquirer . “If that law enforcement source does not attribute their name to that information,” Mr. Vance said of an unnamed source in a Hartford Courant story that references the medical records of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, “then that information is suspect.” Indeed, most of the information that has seen its way into print from sources other than Mr. Vance has been questionable, to say the least. It has fallen to Mr. Vance to make certain that none of the authoritative information included in a twice delayed criminal report comes to light anytime soon.

This is a self interview Q: I’ve now read everything you’ve written about the Sandy Hook mass murders, quite a lot [ Here sorted by date ]. I’ve noticed two things: You have not weighed in on what some people might consider the central legislative issues, the “should” questions – should certain weapons be banned, that sort of thing; and throughout your commentary, you manage to sound like a Jeremiah on what some grey heads in the journalism business use to call “freedom of information.” Is that a right reading of the main thrust of your commentary on Sandy Hook?

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.

There has been a journalistic breakthrough in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass murder case. It’s always a hopeful sign when journalists rub the sleepy seeds from their eyes and wake up. Some in Connecticut appear to have been aroused by a story that first appeared in the New York Daily News – significantly NOT in any Connecticut media watering hole. A few days ago, Rick Green of the Hartford Courant speculated on his blog, “ Maybe the state police owe us some official details about what happened — before we change laws and spend a lot of the public’s money.” In the future, after all the legislation affecting legal gun ownership has been rolled out, signed, sealed and delivered, the question foremost in everyone’s mind will be, “What didn’t they know and why didn’t’ they know it.”

Following the slaughter of the innocents at Sandy Hook, there was some muttering very early on concerning a possible connection between mass murderer Adam Lanza, his penchant for playing violent video games and the killing of 20 students and 6 faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Very quickly, public attention became focused, almost fetishistically, on the kinds of weapons Mr. Lanza brought to the school – two semi-automatic pistols, a semi-automatic Bushmaster long rifle and a shotgun that Mr. Lanza left in the trunk of the car he apparently stole from his mother, whom he murdered before leaving for the school.

It is abundantly clear from remarks made by the members of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional delegation, both before and after President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, that the litmus test of effective gun legislation is that such legislation should prevent future Sandy Hooks.

In response to the mass killing in Sandy Hook, Democratic legislators in Connecticut’s General Assembly, under pressure to do something – anything, quickly!!! -- have so far offered some novel recommendations. State Senator Beth Bye of West Hartford and state Representative Bob Godfrey of D-Danbury have proposed a limitation to high capacity weapons; the Majority Leader in the State Senate, Martin Looney, has vowed to introduce a bill prohibiting those barred from legally owning firearms from possessing ammunition as well. Ms. Bye and Mr. Godfrey want a 50 percent tax on ammunition, and Mr. Looney anticipates a bill that would tax “expensive guns,” the proceeds from which could be used  to set up a fund for mental health support. No one should hold his breath; dedicated funds in Connecticut melt into the General Fund whenever the legislature has written too many costly bills – which is to say, always. None of these larval bills would have prevented the slaughter at Sandy H...

Following the horrific mass murder in Sandy Hook, Connecticut – 27 people slain, 20 of them innocent children – it took but a moment for some politicians to mount their various hobby horses and, in an effort not to let this bloody crisis go to waste, call loudly for “immediate action” on gun control measures. Here is the Hartford Courant lashing the political draft horses: “Stay angry. Remember how you felt this weekend. Don't let the faces of those children go until meaningful, actual steps are taken to make this a safer and less violent country.” Any call for immediate action while the heart is bludgeoned by emotion should be politely resisted, because right action – the only kind that actually solves problems – generally follows in the train of right thought. Emotional responses, however appropriate given the circumstances, often lead to ineffective dead end streets and solutions that only solve the problems of those proposing solutions. After barrels of ink have been sp...