What Might Work To Reduce Violent Crime?

So, recently I asked whether or not gun control nuts who agitate for the same-old gun control measures every time there is a high profile shooting, regardless of whether their proposals could have stopped that shooting, really cared about the victims they exploit to advance their pet measures. I understand it was a provocative question... I asked it on purpose to make a point.

Taking advantage of the latest high-profile shooting to push for the same old gun control measures isn't being compassionate, it's ghoulish and wrong. ESPECIALLY when the proposal is made with a wish that we can "stop this from ever happening again."

Let's be crystal clear on this. If you are one of those who want to "make sure this never happens again", please understand that this simply isn't possible. You can't pass enough laws to change human nature, and the human animal is hard-wired to violence. Some portion of us WILL lash out and kill or try to kill others... there is simply no way to make sure it never happens again. Know this: THERE WILL ALWAYS BE ANOTHER MURDER. So, no matter what we do, it WILL happen again. Unfortunate, but there it is.

Yes, if the pipe dream of getting rid of all guns were to be achieved, then "gun violence" would be greatly reduced... sort of. But even then, firearms would be available to the military, which means some would be illegally owned by private individuals one way or another. But the point is that there are 300 million guns in this country, owned by 60 million households, and if you think deporting 11 million illegal aliens would be impossible, do you really want to give THAT a try? I don't think making guns illegal and then confiscating them is even possible, even setting aside Constitutional issues, and even if you could manage it you wouldn't get rid of violence, merely that particular tool. Humans would still hate and kill, and a knife or sword can be quite deadly in even slightly skilled hands.

I'm dealing with reality, folks, not a political bias. But this does raise a question. Since we can't "stop violence," what might be an achievable goal? That's the question I will attempt to address now, aiming specifically at this particular incident. I will start by rejecting any proposal that is aimed at the hugely vast number of people who own one or more guns and will never use them to commit a crime. All that accomplishes is to piss off those law-abiding gun owners, and does absolutely nothing to reduce crime.

Also, I'd like to agree that we should have a MEANINGFUL goal. The Brady campaign likes to claim the assault weapons ban was a complete success because of the number of people who were denied purchases because of a failed background check. In reality, EVERYBODY who has studied the issue knows the law did not reduce crime rates at all... primarily because assault weapons are used in a very small number of crimes, i.e. less than one percent. We need a MEANINGFUL measure, or this is all for naught. Removing guns from people isn't a sign of success, nor is refusing people the right to own a gun. No, a success would have to be a real reduction in violent crime rates, or at the very least an increase in catching and punishing those that DO commit violent crime. So I think that's the standard... if a proposal doesn't really work to reduce crimes, then it is out the door.

It is interesting, but the normal political dynamics don't seem to apply, here. On the conservative side, this didn't happen in a "gun-free zone," or in a state with rigid gun control laws. Concealed permits are available in Virginia, and open carry is legal. It's hard to imagine any law that would give people MORE chances to protect themselves... what are we going to do, FORCE people to carry guns? Not a great idea.

From the liberal side, it's hard to imagine anything short of banning guns for everybody that would have stopped Williams from committing this crime. He was a man who had no criminal history, no documented mental problems, and made no threats. What "common sense gun control measure" would you recommend? I can't think of any that wouldn't also result in millions of law-abiding people getting hassled or wrongly deprived of their firearms.

Face it, this looks like Bryce Williams might be the poster child for my point, i.e. sometimes there is no way to stop a crime from happening. I can't think of a single law that would have made much of a difference. Can you?

In general I oppose gun control laws, because the gun itself is not the problem, no matter how scary it looks or how many bullets are in it. I favor measures that allow people to defend themselves, or that assist police in catching violent criminals. Note that I didn't say prevent, because often there's no way to do that. In my book, the Williams incident was a policing success, because they found him quickly and arrested or killed him. (In this case, cornered him and he killed himself. Just as good.) You see, police were never intended to PREVENT crime, they were intended to catch criminals so the justice system could punish them. And that's the role they should play. I think the combination of people willing and able to defend themselves and a justice system that is able to work even fairly well will make things better than they are now.

But as I said, the gun laws are lax enough that I wouldn't complain overly much about them. There are some changes I might make, but they'd have little or not effect vis a vis this discussion, so I'm willing to let them slide.

So how do we improve policing? I don't mean passing another meaningless law (murder is already illegal), I mean how do we do something that would work to reduce violent crime?

One suggestion would be to lessen their load. Part of the problem is that politicians are making more and more things illegal, a lot of them simple acts that don't harm anyone. Selling loose cigarettes so buyers can avoid the sky-high taxes on them, for example. As long as police engage in "broken-window" policing, they are not able to focus on serious criminal activity. So why not start looking at ways to reduce the workload by taking things that never should have been illegal in the first place, and changing the law so they aren't illegal anymore?

While we're at it, can we remove the profit motive from policing? They can't seize property or money absent at least an indictment, and they can't keep it for themselves. The money seized goes into the city, county, or state coffers instead of directly to the police office. Same with traffic tickets of any kind... they don't get to keep the money. That way, there's no conflict of interest, no profit motive that makes them allocate disproportional amounts of manpower to this or that area. They will be freer to allocate manpower based upon real, criminal need.

Notice that I'm not calling for more police officers, I'm calling for lawmakers to regain sanity and stop making things illegal. In a country where almost everything is illegal, police will ALWAYS be overwhelmed with the trivial, and therefore unable to handle the critical.

So I think that's a starting place. Let's start by making their jobs easier, removing the profit motive and the incessant buzzing of minor things that shouldn't be a crime in the first place, and that way they will be freer to deal with more critical crimes.

So, what do you think? Do you have any other suggestions that I didn't bring up or might have overlooked? Let's see if we can come up with some suggestions that might actually make a difference!



Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.