by Megan McArdle
It would certainly be more comfortable for me to endorse doing something symbolic–bring back the “assault weapons ban”–in order to signal that I care. But I would rather do nothing than do something stupid because it makes us feel better. We shouldn’t have laws on the books unless we think there’s a good chance they’ll work: they add regulatory complexity and sap law-enforcement resources from more needed tasks. This is not because I don’t care about dead children; my heart, like yours, broke about a thousand times this weekend. But they will not breathe again because we pass a law. A law would make us feel better, because it would make us feel as if we’d “done something”, as if we’d made it less likely that more children would die. But I think that would be false security. And false security is more dangerous than none.
Huckabee: Where Was God?
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2038135300001/huckabee-where-was-god/?playlist_id=86941
Some wisdom from our past, eloquently delivered by Bill Whittle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx9–zQDfog
Megan McArdle’s full article is completely devoid of “common sense.” She actually suggests that the only real solution to mass shootings is to insrtuct small children to gang rush shooters instead of running and hiding:
“I’d also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once. Would it work? Would people do it? I have no idea; all I can say is that both these things would be more effective than banning rifles with pistol grips.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/17/there-s-little-we-can-do-to-prevent-another-massacre.html
Jonathan Chait points out how stupid this is:
“Are you kidding me? You think gun control is impractical, so your plan is to turn the entire national population, including young children, into a standby suicide squad? Through private initiative, of course. It’s way more feasible than gun control!
McArdle does allow that such behavior runs contrary to instinct. Well, yes. Teaching even fairly aggressive young boys who are learning football to avoid their self-preservation instinct and crash into their opponent full speed rather than shying away from contact usually takes rigorous, lengthy training. This is when they’re wearing a helmet and full-body padding and going up against a kid their age. Trying to get them to fling their bodies into danger in a situation where they’re in shock, have no protection, and are facing an adult with a gun rather than a kid with a football is beyond impossible.
Unless I am missing a very subtle parody of libertarianism, McArdle’s plan to teach children to launch banzai charges against mass murderers is the single worst solution to any problem I have ever seen offered in a major publication. Newsweek, I award this essay no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/12/newsweek-wins-worst-newtown-reaction-award.html
Chris, would you believe that law enforcement says when you are not armed and trapped, the best tactic is to gang rush a shooter? Of course this isn’t practical when the kids are too small and too scared, but the gang rush idea is absolutely the right decision and would have worked well in a number of recent shootings, like on a college campus where that South Korean crazy student broke into a classroom and started shooting people one by one. That action would have saved lives, it’s the only reasonable option – it’s not suicidal, it’s smart.
I know this is not your area of expertise Chris, so I’m not holding you too responsible for your words… this time.
Isn’t this, in effect, what the trapped passengers of flight 93 chose to do on 9/11. It didn’t save their lives but it saved countless lives for those at the targeted destination and it saved our nation another major blow.
Obviously it is not always possible or practical to charge a shooter but having some training that would make this an option for teachers and others who work in public places might be more valuable than another gun law at least in some instances.
We have been fortunate to live in a relatively safe, free country but that reality has been changing rapidly in the last twenty to thirty years. the safety bubble was first shattered in my lifetime by people involved in leftist movements like the Weather Underground and the crazy serial killers of the sixties and seventies.
I hate to think about what is coming next for which we will not be prepared.
That is exactly what the people on Flight 93 did. When people have a chance to work it through, this is the logical answer.
It would be one thing to advocate that practice for adults, Jack, but it is another to say that small children should do it.
Tina: “the safety bubble was first shattered in my lifetime by people involved in leftist movements like the Weather Underground and the crazy serial killers of the sixties and seventies.”
I’m sorry, but if your “safety bubble” was “shattered” by the Weather Underground–which managed to kill only one person, accidentally, who was a member of the group–then your safety bubble was far too cozy to begin with. I obviously don’t agree with their destructive methods, but you’re overhyping the threat they posed for political reasons. Comparing them with serial killers is ridiculous.
Chris it’s a damn shame you never got to experience living in an America where people left their doors open at night, kids left their toys and bikes lying around in the front yard and cars could be left with windows open in the summer heat…in some places with the keys in the ignition. the children in Connecticut would be living in a similar safe bubble were it not for the politics of those who associated themselves as the Weather Underground. They may have abandoned their violent tactics but they never abandoned their progressive agenda to drive religion/morality out of our schools and out of our society in search of controlling big government utopia. They continue to be a threat to this day!
Removing guns from the homes of American citizens is another, more difficult goal for the elitist progressives in the Democrat Party. YOU may not be able to see the correlation but I do.
And don’t even try to take that snide attitude in describing my “too cozy” bubble…isn’t a cozy bubble exactly what you would have hoped to achieve for these unfortunate kids at their school? Isn’t that what the calls for stricter gun laws is all about? If not…why not?