Wehrwolfen
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- May 22, 2012
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LAW AND ORDER IN THE FALLEN WORLD:
By: Benjamin Domenech
It is a natural tendency on the part of most human beings, when confronted with great evil, to want to do something about it. We want to stop the horror of death and violence and disease. It speaks to what is good within us that we desire thisit speaks to a recognition on our part, innate and abiding, that there is something terribly broken in this worlda great mistake which has been made along the way, a gear missed in the works, a gaping hole where something should be. The feeling is all the stronger when we face the destruction of innocent lifethe life of a child. The Mishnah tells us that the act of murder destroys a whole worldthe world as it wouldve been with that person in it. When the worlds wiped out are so young, the shock of it all echoes and rebounds throughout the lives of others for generations. And the only part that can be played by those left behind is one of charity.
This is a frustrating limitation, and so those who are more naturally given to see problems of law or culture as the reason for evil look at the horror of Newtown as something that can be prevented, if only we do this or that thing, pass this or that law. Something must be done, they say. But their somethings all have this in common: none of their proposals, on guns or mental health or any other factor, would have prevented this awful crime. In the real world, there is no law that can make the murderously insane sane, or remove all weapons from their grasp. The tweaks that have been attempted in the past in our nation and others have proven insufficient time and again. And no step which disarms the law-abiding will help.
We are in the midst of an historic and statistically impossible decline in violence in America. The economic downturn, which would be a reasonable reason for a rebound in violent crime, has produced nothing of the sort on a nationwide scale. The experts are flabbergasted as to why, and the assumptions of criminologists are being tested to a great degree. Why Crime Keeps Falling - WSJ.com High imprisonment, high tech tools, more disciplined police forces, and cultural factors are all potential reasons. But it is clear that even as guns are available as ever, this has done nothing to drive up crime rates nationwide. And beyond: Steven Pinker has argued, convincingly, that we are at the most peaceful point in human history. Steven Pinker: The surprising decline in violence | Video on TED.com In the midst of such declines, spikes of mass violence and murder are all the more jarring.
Yet the sad fact is that in Connecticut, where the gun laws are some of the most restrictive in the country, it appears the Brady campaign accomplished as much as it couldve. http://vlt.tc/mbp Newtown had one homicide in the past ten years. Connecticut has tighter gun laws than most states The guns used by the madman were purchased legally by his mother and kept safely in her home as with most guns used in criminal acts, they were stolen. His own attempt to purchase a weapon ran into the legally required waiting period. Investigation is 'very complex' - Video on TODAY.com There are just only so many steps you can take to prevent evil of this nature and still have a free society. After all, what really happens when you pass gun bans is that effectively, they work as permanent authorizations for police to stop and frisk urban minorities. Stop and Frisk: racistand ineffective Consider the case of Chicago, where Rahm Emanuel is talking about more restrictions in the wake of Newtown. Rahm Wants New Gun Laws in Wake of Newtown School Shooting | NBC Chicago What does he have in mind? There were 192 shootings in Chicago last month. Shootings in November rise sharply over a year earlier - chicagotribune.com On Friday alone there were 10 people shot in his city. 10 shot, including 4 teens, Friday afternoon and night - chicagotribune.com Whatever Emanuels new law is, it would not prevent these crimes. In Mexico, there is one legal gun store to serve the entire nation. It is, according to the Washington Post, not very busy. In Mexico, only one gun store but no dearth of violence In America, there are roughly 300 million privately owned firearms and while some may dream of putting these firearms in a pile and melting them down, most Americans understand that the result of giving the government a monopoly on force would be awful for the very innocents such policies are intended to protect.
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