At Iowa’s Mason City high school in the 1970s, students sometimes hunted before classes began. We routinely left rifles, shotguns and ammo in our vehicles, in full view. Custodians mopped up blood on hallway floors from pheasants, ducks, quail and other fowl, which were stored in our lockers during the school day. In the parking lot, a classmate showed me his double-barrel, over-and-under, .12-gauge Browning Citori, as teachers, students, and other passersby thought nothing of it. But if that occurred today, arrests would result.
Recent mass shootings have predictably fueled new, clueless demands for more gun control. However, government agencies and watch lists, federal or otherwise, aren’t nearly as effective as the collective, real-time intelligence that U.S. communities can glean about wackos with dangerous political beliefs.
But rather than empower local leaders to investigate, report, and effectively deal with such troubled souls, liberals, since the 1960s, have undermined the moral authority of educators, ministers, coaches, law enforcement officers, service club members and preachers. There’s simply not much government can do about mass shooters, and what’s been done hasn’t been very effective. That’s because people, NOT firearms, cause mass killings, and penalizing law-abiding gun owners for violence perpetrated by creeps and sociopaths is morally wrong, and dangerous.
While red-flag laws may prevent some suicides, it’s unproven that they’d stop any mass murders. Dr. Richard A. Friedman, the highly regarded psychiatrist, told The New York Times on August 8, 2019, that even “experienced psychiatrists fare no better than a roll of the dice at predicting violence.”
Mass shootings were nearly nonexistent when public schools featured classroom prayer and the overwhelming majority of kids were raised in two-parent homes. Back then, far more families regularly attended church services, and teachers were respected – partly because they could freely discipline unruly students.
Instead of listening to violence-provoking music, everyday Americans preferred Johnny Cash, Karen Carpenter, The Beach Boys, Cass Elliot, Elvis Presley, Anne Murray and Dean Martin. On TV, we watched “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Green Acres,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” and “Bonanza.”
From second grade through middle school, many boys, myself included, carried a Cub Scout knife or a Boy Scout knife. We sometimes fought, but we NEVER pulled a knife – at school, or elsewhere. Today, a knife at school gets students suspended, or expelled. In the 1970s, sheriffs and police would sometimes preemptively jail potential troublemakers for their, and society’s, benefit. Some who were locked up expressed gratitude upon their release. But if this happened now, the ACLU would sue.
Wicked, not innocent, individuals should be punished. Gun-free zones are laughable, as many school shootings and other massacres have transpired in them. Obviating this carnage means making weapons available to intended victims, forcing would-be criminals to consider the possibility of armed resistance. In some particularly gruesome mass murders, aircraft, vehicles, and fertilizer were weaponized; should we ban those?
The crime-infested cities of Chicago, Baltimore, Atlantic City, Detroit, New Orleans, East St. Louis (Illinois), Oakland, Newark, and others with extremely high murder rates per capita are governed by pro-gun-control political hacks. These clueless politicians lack credibility, but they keep getting elected — which exemplifies cultural decay. The naivete of many Americans has proven fatal to innocent, lawful victims, who were denied the right to prevent their own slaughter.
Alternative view:Congress, Iowa Legislature should have as much backbone on gun policies as Walmart does
This societal breakdown — facilitated by misguided, politically correct policies — is causal to mass shootings. Because conservatives opposed and warned against such ludicrous, culture-poisoning actions, it’s immoral for the same kind of radical fools, whose faulty ideas enabled this mess, to now demand even more restrictive firearms regulations.
Todd Blodgett of Clear Lake served on President Reagan’s White House staff and as an adviser to the 1988 presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush. He also worked for the Republican National Committee and the FBI.