Soon after - as with every such tragedy - the focus
turned to gun control. Yet - as always - control advocates are ignoring the
facts: criminals attack areas of least resistance - where guns are not allowed
or in smaller numbers, there is a negative correlation between gun ownership
and serious crime, and new laws cannot control guns.
I see a three-pronged problem:
1. Gun-free
zones: eliminate them. Enable responsible individuals in public places to carry
or have easy access to guns for the protection of others. And find more
creative ways to improve security in such areas.
2. The
mentally ill: loosen legal restrictions on how we deal with them. E.g. allow a registry
(with reasonably restricted access) that identifies persons who have been seen
as a potential danger to others - just as we can reveal to the DMV people who
are a danger driving.
3. Politics!
Rational people could agree that we don’t generally need assault weapons for
self-defense or sports. But government should not dictate our needs; and the
political climate is such that yielding to the control advocates on such a
point would only lead to further attempts to impose controls beyond reason. And
even if Congress could pass a law that rationally determined which gun
restrictions are and are not violations of our right to bear arms, that would
not prevent criminals from obtaining illegal weapons.
Fiscal Cliff: does anyone wonder how a “balanced”
solution to the “Cliff” became defined as increased revenues (via tax hikes) and
virtually no decrease in spending? Obama’s forced deal has certainly not
averted a fiscal crisis yet to come. It simply advanced his short-term goals of
punishing the rich, redistributing income for the sake of economic equality and
subsidizing his friends. This will all be at the long-term expense of our
economy which will likely be blamed on the next President.
Note that our financial crisis of ’08 began with the equally
irrational goal of “equality” of home ownership. Few seemed to understand how
that would damage our economy either. Now using the same excuse to confiscate
wealth is a moral disgrace; it is a good example of how our morality is been
degraded and our political system destroyed. All such redistribution and divisive
efforts are undertaken merely for a statist/Marxist principle. The lies to
justify it all will never end unless people are taught that inequality is a
natural and healthy phenomenon that benefits the poor the most when it results
from free markets, not political cronyism and statist policies. As economist
Yaron Brook said, “A society that cares about inequality of income is a sick
society driven by altruism and envy.” Those who ask for unearned equality or
inequality are guilty of parasitism.
