Doug Ross:
No sooner had word of the diabolically evil massacre in Aurora reached the airwaves than liberals began to exploit it politically. Waiting not even a day for the families to grieve, the likes of The Chicago Sun-Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Times, mayor Michael Bloomberg and the philandering race-baiter Jesse Jackson swung into action.
Their mission: to politicize the debate and gain some purchase for their long-discredited argument that preventing the law-abiding from defending themselves with firearms would prevent gun violence.
But consider the irony of residents of New York City and Chicago issuing screeds for more gun control. Both cities enforce draconian (and unconstitutional) bans on the right to keep and bear arms. And both cities are awash in gun violence, despite their myriad gun control measures:
• Every week in Chicago, criminals kill, maim and wound the guilty and innocent alike. Last month, over a single weekend, 8 were shot to death and more than 40 wounded.
• New York City is likewise awash in “illegal” guns as criminals have no problem acquiring them; this July has seen a28% rise in city shootings since last year.
And for those liberals who believe that it is only the fact that neighboring areas — with more lax gun control policies — are responsible, consider the following attacks:
• In Sweden, a neo-Nazi slaughtered 92 innocents; Sweden is a country that effectively bans guns (as do its neighbors);
• One victim of the Aurora attack, Jessica Ghawi, had narrowly survived a mass shooting in a Canadian mall in which two died and seven others were wounded. Canada greatly restricts access to firearms and, to the best of my knowledge, Eric Holder has not yet attempted to smuggle heavy weapons into that country.
Can you ban guns? Of course not: firearms and gunpowder have been manufactured for centuries and any half-decent machine shop could manufacture semi- or fully-automatic weapons.
Can you ban mass-murder? Of course not: the Aurora murderer — who I refuse to name — could have detonated a gasoline bomb in the crowded theater. Islamist terrorists manufacture suicide belts and recommend driving cars into crowds.
The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator? And does it not subject the innocent to all the disagreeable circumstances that should only fall on the guilty? It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons.
Cesare Beccaria – Crimes and Punishments, 1764
Ban Evil? “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Nonetheless much can be accomplish. NYC’s illustrious mayor is however a Blooming idiot and a moral coward. If First Citizen Bloomberg wishes to make real progress for America let him first address and reverse the breakdown of the tradition family in America.
You know why Liberals cannot ”ban evil?”
(Well, there are loads of reasons.)
One is that they cannot accept a definition of ”evil.”
Perhaps NYC’s illustrious mayor and 1% First Citizen Bloomberg can show us the way by personal example. Let him first dismiss ALL of his armed and unarmed private and public security personnel and all of his private and public security coverage. Then let him move with his family to the most dangerous neighborhood in NYC unarmed and live there for the rest of his term as mayor.