I’m writing this on Friday, December 13, 2013. I feel a sense of foreboding that has nothing to do with Friday the thirteenth. It has everything to do with the fact that tomorrow will mark one year since the atrocity in Newtown, Connecticut at the Sandy Hook Elementary School that left twenty little kids and six innocent adults dead before the monster responsible blew his own brains out.
My first thought, and still the strongest, was the horror of it all: I have grandchildren the age of the victims. But I cannot escape the firestorm of hate that came down on law-abiding gun owners in the wake of it. Sandy Hook became a handy hook for a newly re-elected anti-gun President to take off his mask of neutrality on Second Amendment rights, and lead an unprecedented assault against them.
That assault gained ground in some places: California to some extent, Colorado, Connecticut, and New York, for example. Nationally, though, it largely fizzled. My friend Richie Feldman analyzed the situation well yesterday in his op-ed piece in USA Today.
But on the fourteenth, we can expect the Prohibitionists to dance until they’re exhausted in the blood of the innocent dead, pushing their class warfare against gun owners and ignoring the remedies that CAN prevent such atrocities. That would be measures in place on the ground allowing the next such monster to be interdicted before he can build his sick “body count.” There has been some positive movement in that direction in the year since, but not nearly enough.
Expect a media gun control circus, despite counter-efforts by pro-gun groups to make it a day of education on safety. Another old friend, Dave Workman, makes some good points on that topic.
Mourn the dead, as we will on this end. If something meaningful comes from those heartbreaking deaths, it will be a push for on-the-ground measures to interdict mass murderers a’ la’ the Israeli Model, not punishment of more innocent people with Draconian laws born in empty symbolism.
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