National Review Online
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Virginia witnessed a thoroughly modern murder. A
middle-aged man, described ubiquitously as “disgruntled,” shot dead two of his
former colleagues while they were broadcasting a live segment for a local
television news station. Subsequently, he posted a first-person video of the
killings to both Twitter and Facebook, along with a brief explanation of his
motives. After a tense car chase, he was surrounded, and he attempted to kill
himself. He died a few hours later.
The Left’s reaction to the story was Pavlovian. Having
sought out the nearest camera, Virginia’s Governor Terry McAuliffe was quick to
push for new laws. Because “there is too much gun violence in America,”
McAuliffe suggested, the federal government must move to require background
checks on all private sales. On Twitter, meanwhile, Democratic frontrunner
Hillary Clinton proposed vaguely that “we must act to stop gun violence, and we
cannot wait any longer.” These responses, which echoed across media, were
typically thoughtless and knee-jerk. Usually, architects of public policy wait
to hear which problem they are being asked to solve before proposing a
solution. When it comes to the Second Amendment, they fire up the
cookie-cutter.
Since the massacre at Sandy Hook rekindled their interest
in more regulation, President Obama and the Democratic party have been hawking
a three-pronged gun-control package. Under this regime, Americans in all states
would be prohibited from obtaining any of the arbitrarily chosen rifles that
have been deemed to be “assault weapons”; they would be restricted from
purchasing magazines that hold more than ten rounds; and they would be obliged
to undergo a background check when buying a gun from a private seller. When
these measures have been installed, Americans are assured, they will be able to
say “never again” in earnest.
Prima facie, there are a number of problems with these
proposals. Although they are the focus of so much of our debate, so-called
assault weapons are in fact used so rarely in crimes that the federal
government does not keep records. Limiting the size of magazines, while
superficially comprehensible, would in practice have the primary effect of
reducing the chance that law-abiding people — who often shoot poorly under
duress — will be able to defend themselves against criminals who have no
respect for the rules. As for universal background checks, they are easily
circumvented and often serve as little more than a means by which the state can
harass the innocent. Most damning of all, none of these measures tend to
intersect with the hyper-publicized incidents that are used to sell them.
Whatever happens, the same solutions are proffered.
From what we now know, it seems unlikely that the
Virginia shooter would have been stopped by any of the proposals that are
currently under consideration. He did not use an “assault weapon,” but a
standard handgun. He fired no more than eight rounds in the course of his
spree. And he seems to have obtained his gun from a store, and therefore is
likely to have undergone a background check.
The United States is a country in which there are more
than 300 million privately owned firearms, and in which the people are
protected in their possession of them by a cherished constitutional right. In a
manifesto that was faxed to ABC News earlier in the week, the shooter explained
that he was tired of racism and homophobia, and that he had been inspired to
buy a gun after the shooting in Charleston, S.C. Elsewhere, he expressed
admiration for the killers at Columbine High School and at Virginia Tech, and
explained that he had been told to murder by “Jehovah.” It is unreasonable to
presume that if a man is willing to go to the trouble of televising and
uploading his double murder, he will be unable to find a weapon with which to
carry it out.
If we are to engage in a concerted, serious effort to
prevent those who hear voices from threatening the public safety, to begin by
reforming our broken mental-health system is a more sensible course. We might
move to prosecute anybody who has reasonable cause to believe that he is
availing a dangerous person of a firearm. We might insist that to have
knowledge that a person represents a grave and imminent threat to others is to
have a legal responsibility to inform the authorities. We might look to reform
our lax treatment and commitment laws, which leave too many at-risk individuals
on the street, suffering from hallucinations and delusions over which, without
medication, they may have little control. Above all, we should acknowledge that
there are no easy answers here — however many people come together to wave
their hands and shout, “Do something!”
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