Art of Conservatism for October 3, 2017

Sighing and Grief, or, What More Gun Laws?

It takes a lot to shake me up, to get me emotionally roiled over any incident which occurs outside my immediate circle of friends and loved ones. Which tells me that the Mandalay Massacre in Las Vegas was a lot. And it was.

I shudder at the level of the evil that made this monster—Stephen Paddock--- do what he did. I also look with pride at the American Spirit of those who went out of their way to help others who were wounded keep from dying, of those who pulled their women down to the ground to shield them from the mega-bullets which inexorably killed a number of them, of the First Responders and Medical Personnel who did what they had to do to save lives in the most efficient manner possible. I cannot imagine what they went through and what went through them in all the hours of time and overtime that they had to keep on keeping on in order to limit the damage caused. My wife feels the same way, and she's a nurse. 

And I cannot begin to tell you of my anger at the monsters who, even as I write this, can only use the moment to belittle those who don't agree with them, and who demand that we all become slaves to a burgeoning tyrannical government bureacracy which would love nothing more than to take away our ability to defend ourselves via the Second Amendment. 

And, I'm particularly incensed at that little monster Snow Flake (Ms.Tarnished-Gold) who, with her obvious standard equipment flint heart, declared on Facebook that she had no sympathy for those “Republican Trump supporters” who were gunned down. How did she know anything about their political leanings? Only in her own mind. She was only proving to all her intellectual laziness, judgemental attitude, and callous demeanor---In short, the very definition of evil. She deserved to lose her gig at CBS. How hypocritical of them to fire her, by the way. Oh, Ms What's-your-name-Gold, there is a likely job waiting for you at the Southern Poverty Law Center. You'd fit right in.

In doing all of that, the Left betrays a huge lack of imagination, and an equally huge ignorance of facts which are out there for all the rest of us to see. In short, they choose not 'to be in on the joke'.

First, they scream for gun laws when the laws already on the books are not being enforced!! I remember this concept from when I was a kid. I was many times denied something I wanted simply because I hadn't used all of the other resources I had to accomplish the same purpose. Take this Stephen Paddock fellow, the one who killed the 59 or more people from near the top of Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. This guy broke every law in the books where guns were concerned. Somebody besides him had to have known this. Law enforcement had to know as well. But, because nobody said anything to anyone who could have done anything about that (read that, law enforcement), and nothing was followed up, nothing was done, and we all know, way too painfully, the result. So, memo to Statists in Congress (including you, Hillary!), Leftists, and Snow Flakes: don't you dare ask for more Gun Laws, until you can prove that you are enforcing the laws which are already on the books.

Now, I said what I said in the last paragraph for a reason. The arsenal which Paddock accumulated was bought, in one sense, but not legally in another sense, and modified illegally. Where did Paddock get the knowledge? You Tube. That's right. It turns out that You Tube is an even better source of information useful to terrorist than even the isis magazine, “Inspire”. On You Tube, you can learn how to modify an semi-automatic weapon into the real murdering deal. Why isn't the ATF following up on that? Hmmmm?

What about getting the gun dealers together to help connect the dots? This idea is from CBS commentator Dave Ross, and it's a good one: Have gun dealers network to see if patterns turn up regarding certain customers, the ones who are buying a really large amount of assualt weapons and ammo from different dealers. It could be all volunteer among reputable gun dealers, and would also be a litmus test to point out the dealers who won't cooperate. The Federal government wouldn't need to be involved, except as a recipient of information regarding those patterns. Buyers wouldn't need to give their social security information. Use their FOIA card numbers instead (I'm assuming here that SSI's are not used for FOIA numbers; if that isn't the case, changing the law to provide for different FOIA numbers would be a law worth passing by Congress.). If patterns of large purchases of weapons and ammo start appearing, a way to connect the dots would be to have the ATF check the buyer's You Tube account to see if anything else is going on. Connecting the dots in that way would be a huge step toward dealing with potential mass shooters before they strike. 

I'm not alone in thinking this. Dan Bongino, former New York cop and member of the Secret Service, seconds the notion. There are plenty of ways in which law enforcement can legally 'connect the dots' to spot potential killers before they exercise their opportunity to multi-kill. Why don't they use them? And, if they're not legally allowed to do that part of their work, that's where we change the gun laws.