“It’s not about me,” insisted the President of these United States, before crowds in Hartford, Connecticut.
Barack Obama, in expert oratorical mode, elaborated: “Some in the Washington press suggest that what happens to gun violence legislation in Congress this week will either be a political victory or defeat for me.” After a long and impressive facial pause, he went on. “Connecticut, this is not about me; it’s not about politics. This is about doing the right thing. . . .” but he didn’t stop there. He listed the beneficiaries of “gun violence legislation”:
- “for all the families who are here who have been torn apart by gun violence”;
- “and all the families going forward . . . so we can prevent this from happening again”;
- “it’s about the law enforcement professionals putting their lives at risk. . . .”
Not about politics? Sounds exactly like politics.
No discussion of the efficacy or practicality of what’s on the line, universal background checks on all gun sales. (Private trades in legal armaments now constitute a “loophole,” you see.) What evidence is there that universal background checks would have stopped the murderous Adam Lanza — or most such hard-to-predict murderers?
The Orator-in-Chief’s earlier emphasis on the ostensible fact of 90 percent American support for this rule is also political. You can bet that the pollsters did not probe very deeply into the nitty gritty of the issue by asking about increases in bureaucracy, paperwork, the regulation of law-abiding folk.
Or how to get criminals to comply.
None of that.
It is all politics. The feel-good politics of politicians claiming they are “doing something.”
That is not principle. Not philosophy. And certainly not responsible policy making.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “It’s Not About Responsibility”
On a recent ‘WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST OF THE WEB” the writer (Mr. Taranto) quotes a web site OF LAW ENFORCEMENT PROFESSIONALS, AND A SURVEY OF 15,000 VERIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT PROFESSIONALS. Most were AGAINST this stuff that Obama is pushing.
But, what do they know???? They are only law enforcement professionals.
The neat part of these politics is these same false arguments worked in Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain, Cambodia, Turkey and many other places around the globe, all of which knew “it could never happen here”.
If you really wish to reduce gun violence, disarm the governments, not the citizens. As life is commonly a decision between imperfect solutions so pick one, the possibility of an additional Adam Lanza or another Adolph Hitler.
In 1978, Jimmy Carter arranged a massive, definitive, multi-million dollar federal grant through the Justice Department to sociologist and gun control advocate Dr. James D. Wright at the University of Mass. This was by far the largest gun control study ever done. The purpose was to put to bed determining what and how to control guns effectively in America.
After 4 years of studying all 20,000 gun laws that have ever been done in the US, Dr. Wright and his 3 colleagues published a 3 volume report titled “Under the Gun” and concluded that there are no gun control laws that have ANY effect on crime. And Dr. Wright and his colleagues found that they were no longer advocates of gun control laws.
Virtually all of the mass shootings in the US in the past 20 years have been by mentally ill people shooting unarmed ctizen victims in gun “free” (prohibited) zones. So Obama is pushing laws to create more of the latter? And is being taken seriously?
delendam.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/carter-lite
Passing a “feel-good gun law that:
1) infringes on individual rights
2( is ambiguous
3) will accomplish/prevent nothing
4) is largely unenforceable
5) will criminalize otherwise law-abiding citizens
6) that real criminals will ignore
is the height of arrogance and stupidity.
It is only stupidity if the real goal is to keep people safe from criminals, since it doesn’t help. If the real goal is to keep the government safe from its citizens regardless of what the government does, then it is not stupid at all. It is tyranical, dictatorial and in violation of our Constitution, but it is not stupid.
he wants total disarmament so he can take control of the country like other dictators have done, he is a dangerous man and should be locked up along with his family except for the dog