Re: Nice Planet, Part 2: A-holes on parade
Yeah, but they will only be extremely stupid people, people that really deserve no respect whatsoever. Unfortunately, there are alot of really stupid people, so some of these fools get elected, which makes for the dangerous combination of power and utter stupidity.
So Bob Costas, who has become a millionaire many times over, in part because of a sport which frequently leaves those who play it mental and physical cripples, decides to give us a little civics lesson. It's ghoulish. I guess Costas took his inspiration from Jason Whitlock's column. Both seem to be suffering from "we gotta do something syndrome." My question is, what, exactly?
We have that pesky Second Amendment, which SCOTUS ruled gives Americans a constitutional right to bear arms. Assuming we could get around that, perhaps congress could pass an act outlawing gun possession by individual Americans. We could call it the Volstead Act.
And having passed such an act, we could go about the business of confiscating the hundreds of millions of guns already in private hands. I wouldn't anticipate too many problems there. And once we've confiscated those guns we would have to turn our attention to stopping the crooks who would immediately begin selling guns illegally. I realize there's no historical precedent for traficking in banned products, you'll just have to trust me.
In the alternative, we could adopt the strategy employed by anti-smoking zealots: gradually increasing restrictions on gun owners, which would have the practical effect of a ban. Above all, avoid using the "P" word.
Look, what happend in Kansas City
is shocking. Here's a young guy, seemingly on top of the world, making a pile of money, with a beautiful lady and a new baby. What could go wrong? Well, everything apparantly. But in our shock and dismay, we shouldn't take leave of common sense. We should recognize that these kinds of occurances are statistically quite rare. And that taking a meat cleaver to the problem isn't likely to change the odds of a recurrance very much.
Tens of thousands of lives and families are destroyed each year by alcohol. Lost lives, especially innocent lives killed by drunk drivers, horrific injuries and ruined careers are part of the price we pay. Sadly, part of the price we pay for a Second Amendment is what happened in Kansas City.
It may turn out the young man was giving off signals which weren't noticed (we always seem to be able to diagnose these problems
after the fact). But people who are troubled for one reason or another, rarely kill their lovers and then themselves.
I'm not a gun guy. Don't own guns. Never have. Never will. But I have nothing against the tens of millions of my fellow Americans who do. And it may be that if we had it to do all over again, we might be better off without a Second Amendment. But we don't get to do it all over again. We have a Second Amendment. And no amount of wishful thinking by do-gooders, including Bob Costas, can change that.