Never let a good tragedy go to waste

    Shortly after the election of 2008, a certain “Democrat,” who is now mayor of Chicago, said “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” He was referring to the financial crisis that had dragged America into recession, implying that Congressional “Democrats” could use this as an opportunity to pass a wish list of spending proposals under the guise of economic stimulus.
    Now, although they would never say it, “Democrats’” motto seems to be “Never let a good tragedy go to waste.” The blood that Adam Peter Lanza spilled on the floor of Sandy Hook Elementary School had barely had time to dry when “Democrats” began cynically using it as political cover to resume their drive to disarm law-abiding American citizens. They are calling for new gun control measures, including bans on “assault rifles” and high capacity magazines.
    Actually, assault rifles are already illegal. The weapon that Lanza used is not an assault rifle, it just cosmetically looks like one. It is missing a key feature — a little selective fire switch that allows the shooter to shift from semi-automatic fire to full automatic fire. In other words, it can be shifted from firing one shot for each trigger pull to firing as a machine gun. You cannot, with some very limited exceptions, buy a weapon capable of full automatic fire. Lanza’s weapon, an AR-15, did not have the selective fire capability and, thus, is not an assault rifle.
    Banning high capacity magazines, those that can hold more than 10 rounds, wouldn’t have made any difference, either. Lanza was shooting in a place where he had no risk of encountering an armed adult. The lack of high capacity magazines would have only meant that he would have had to change magazines more frequently. This would have slowed his shooting down only sightly and there would have still been a massacre.
    More gun control laws are futile and, as evidence, I point to Anders Behring Breivik. Do you remember him? He’s the Norwegian nut case who, in a combination car bombing and shooting rampage last year, killed 77 people and injured 242. Most of the dead were teenagers whom he killed in a shooting rampage at a youth camp. Norway has some of the world’s toughest gun control laws, but that didn’t stop Breivik from committing premeditated mass murder.
    Then there’s China where hardly any private citizen can own a gun. Shortly before Lanza went on his rampage, a Chinese man went on a rampage in an elementary school with a knife, stabbing 22 children and one adult. The children were severely injured and some were slashed across the face. There have been several mass stabbing attacks in elementary schools and, a couple of years ago, a man killed eight. Eight is a lower number than 20, but even one murdered child is unacceptable.
    It should also be noted that the era of mass shootings came after gun control laws began appearing. They were very rare before 1968, during a time when there were few gun control laws, beyond a federal law imposing strict license requirements on people who wished to buy a machine gun. It’s only been in recent decades that their occurrence has increased, indicating that there is something fundamentally wrong with our society that has nothing to do with the availability of firearms.
    However, I’m sure that “Democrats” couldn’t care less about the facts. They just see the slaughter of children at an elementary school as a political smokescreen to resume their drive to disarm American citizens. Rick Howell’s remark, in last week’s Liberal Agenda, about “our sacrifices to the 2nd Amendment” is a good example of the contempt that liberals have for Americans’ Constitutional rights. Their tendency to suggest that people who oppose President Obama’s policies do so only because they are racists and call them the President’s "enemies" makes me wonder if the 1st Amendment isn’t much to their liking either.