Killing a roomful of children is a crime so hideous that all civilized people react with shock and horror.  All of us wish there was something we could do to stop crazy or evil people from ever doing such a thing again.  But not all of us think that more laws represent a real-world solution.  As with many other social problems, the problem solvers fall into two groups:

1. those who reflexively assume that government action can fix the problem and call for immediate government action, and,

2. those who are not sure the problem can be solved with legislation and who fear that politicians may make things worse.

Those in the first group always think they “care” more than those in the second group.  After all, they want the problem fixed right now by politicians.  The second group wants to carefully evaluate the pros and cons of government action.  They want to see evidence that the proposed plan can work and they want to consider the side effects.

Look at a few examples of government ‘solutions’ and their side effects.  Alcohol is a very large problem in society.  Legislation to eliminate the problem not only failed, but created some large additional  problems.  A similar case can be made for other drug prohibitions in our huge War on Drugs.  Drugs are still readily available, just as alcohol was during prohibition, so well-intentioned drug laws have failed miserably, and the side effects of increased crime, from both users and suppliers is enormous.  Portugal tried a different approach and the results are impressive.

The War on Poverty has not decreased the percentage of people in poverty.  But the side effects of dependency and social disintegration are very destructive.  Good intentions are not enough to make a law successful.  Good intentions do not change reality.

Washington DC passed strict gun laws starting in 1975, but they remain one of the most dangerous places in the country for murder with guns.  Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and has a very high rate of gun violence, with 438 people killed so far this year.  Australia banned guns in 1997 and has spent half a billion dollars buying guns from law-abiding citizens.  But, what about those Australians who don’t obey the laws?  Assaults involving guns rose 25%.  There was a 20% increase in gun murders.  Armed robberies and home invasions rose as well.  It works out very well for criminals when law-abiding citizens are disarmed.

At Sandy Hook, at the recent mall shooting in Oregon, and at many similar disasters, the disaster ends when the good guys with guns show up.  At that point, the deranged individuals shoot themselves or are shot.  The thing that stops a person with a gun is another person with a gun.  In the two cases mentioned, it appears that the killers were planning an extended killing spree.  Perhaps they were planning to be the most famous killer of all.  They know the grotesque extravaganza that the media makes out of these tragedies.

In the Sandy Hook case, it would have been infinitely better if the school Principal, who bravely lunged at the shooter, had been able to shoot him instead.  She may have saved herself and many children.  But the school was a “gun-free zone”.  That makes it a ”helpless victim zone” for shooters until a good guy with a gun arrives.

The bumper sticker, “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” is not a trivial statement.  It is a concise bit of wisdom.  But the second amendment to our constitution was not written primarily to allow protection from common criminals, nor is it about duck hunting.  When George Washington said, “free people …ought to be armed”, he was thinking about what it takes for a free people to remain free.

An armed populace is one of the greatest deterrents to state tyranny.  It is not an accident that tyrants always seek to disarm those they are abusing.  And in the big picture, mass murder on this planet is the province of governments.  Death from common criminals and lunatics pales in comparison.   If you do not fear government tyranny, you do not know history.

There are many reasons to believe that the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal was a devious two stage attempt to attack the second amendment.  The goal of step 1 was to create death and destruction with American guns.  Step 2 was to publicize the death and destruction and then create a movement to ban guns.  This plan was exposed and so it failed.  (It didn’t fail with the murder part, just with the fake outrage part.)  But in keeping with the Rahm Emanuel policy of never letting a crisis go to waste, we will be seeing a concerted attempt to subvert the second amendment.

A related story from Helen O’Neill at AP is worth mentioning. You will be hearing about the huge increase in mass shootings, just like you hear about the big increase in major storms as a result of “climate change”.  Both claims are false.  O’Neill’s findings include:

• While the perception in the wake of this year’s mass shootings has been that such acts are on the rise, the Associated Press found that it’s actually the exact opposite when you look at the data on a macro level.
• “There is no pattern, there is no increase,” says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston’s Northeastern University.
• He adds that the random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest.
• While mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually  reached their peak in 1929, Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota  Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, says.

My guess is that the best way to ‘do something’ about mentally ill people behaving badly is to concentrate on how we treat mentally ill people.  Those who think that we can put a stop to the problem of bad people doing bad things like this, if we just have the right laws, , are not really thinking clearly.  They are much like those in the 1920′s who thought they could end war by making a law against it.  No, really. The Kellog-Briand Pact, signed on August 27, 1928, by the U.S. and many other countries made war illegal.

The law passed by wide margins everywhere.  Who could be against ending all war?  The people who fought for this legislation were good people.  And amazingly naive.

Update:  Take the time to read John Fund’s excellent column here.  It’s worth a look.