We have made it back home from Nashville. Now that I have feasted on honey ham, and partaken of egg nog and other forms of cheer, The Christmas season is over, and time to look forward to the New Year. For me 2012 was better than 2011, but 2012 has been busier. I expect 2013 to be even busier, and more risk filled. Some of that is personal, but we do have this fight head of us. I plan to celebrate the new year, and get it out of my system. After the New Year, the real battle begins.
Joyce Lee Malcolm has an excellent post in the Wall Street Journal that is well worth reading. Note that Dunblane happened in 1996, and the British didn’t see a handgun ban for another two years. We may be engaged in this that long, depending on what shape this is going to take. There is still much we do not know, and be skeptical of anyone who can tell you for sure what’s coming. The form of the destructor has not yet been chosen.
The comments section of that WSJ article is a train wreck…
The Clarke fiasco does not surprise me. It is the UK after all. My dad made 4 business trips to England in ’08. One of the men he worked with there told my dad a story about paying a traffic ticket. This guy was sent a ticket for not paying a toll or some such violation. He was shocked as the ticket came with a photo of the “crime”. The driver in the photo was not him nor was the vehicle in question his. He tried to fight it but was told he had to pay up since it was sent to him. That said, why would the not arrest Clarke?
We’re headed down that path.
Unless you’re an Authorized Journalist, that is….
It’s already that bad in Massachusetts, although there I got the impression the lower level judges were more sympathetic, but Bartley-Fox’s 1 year mandatory minimum tied their hands. (Obviously the higher level judges, who are as bad as you can get on the issue of guns, could have done something about the law’s problems.)
I should pay more attention. If I’d known you guys were in Nashville, I’dve offered to take you to dinner!
There was a whole lot that happened in England before Dunblane.
Dunblane is also clouded by serious local? authority problems, the shooter should have been in prison for his pedophile crimes, not granted a pistol license. A telling point is that the Crown initially tried to seal everything about the case for 100 years.
That’s allow somewhat less true of the Australian shooter, who e.g. had clearly murdered someone prior.
Anyway, my point is that when the government is desperate to shift blame a law against gun owners is probably more likely. Especially in Westminster parliamentary systems which grant a monopoly of executive and legislative power to the current winning party or coalition (both from the viewpoint of having something to hide and the power to get legislation passed). Neither of these conditions are true for the Connecticut case.
The NY State ambush shooter, though, shouldn’t have been allowed to plead to manslaughter for what was at minimum aggravated 2nd degree murder and only be locked up for 17 years; same but much worse for the Stockton schoolyard shooter, and I suspect that was a factor in Roberti-Roos.
I love this plan….I am excited to be a part of it. Lets do it!