When It Ain't Just the Gun

There was a shooting this past week in Trenton, New Jersey, the capital city of the Garden State. It took place at the state's Arts Festival, and involved a shooter who had been released early from prison, was gang-involved, and which achieved the predictable result.

That is, the Democrat governor of the state took to Twitter to blame not the shooter, not the early prison release, but the firearm:

"We awoke to news of a mass shooting right here in Trenton. Art All Night is a time when we all come together. We cannot let gun violence tear us apart. These are not inappropriate times to talk about gun policy. These are the most important times to talk about gun policy."

The shooter had gone to prison in 2004 and, including a later sentence, should have been incarcerated until 2028 for aggravated manslaughter and racketeering, running a gang from inside prison. However, he was released four months ago for some reason, which made him available to the public. Gee thanks, Governor.

New Jersey's governor, Phil Murphy, as noted though, went right to "gun violence" and that it shouldn't "tear us apart." And none of us is a fan of gun violence, for sure.

So let's just contemplate this.

Imagine that this murderer, fairly fresh out of prison, heads to the Arts Festival the other night to kill whoever it was that he intended to kill. Imagine that.

Now, imagine that you snap your fingers, and all firearms have magically disappeared from the world. There is no such thing, as if they had not been invented. But the murderer is still heading to the Arts Festival.

Now let me ask you a question. Should the person who became the murderer's target feel a lot better because there are no longer any guns? Think about that.

OK, you have thought. And needless to say, the answer is "NO", maybe even "Heck, no". That's because the problem is obviously not the firearm, but what is in the heart of the killer. And if you pay more attention to the means and no attention to the motive, it really does not matter what you do. You cannot change the motivation of a killer by taking away the means. But if you change the motivation, there is no incident at all!

But it is all political, of course. The left and the anti-gun types would be happy if there were the same number of murders as the previous year, but none was committed with a firearm. If they wanted the murder rate to drop, they would focus on why murders happen, a lot more than they focus on the weapon of choice.

That's why I posed the thought above. The killer headed to that arts festival to kill someone, not to fire a weapon. I grant that those caught in the crossfire who were innocents, if any were, would have preferred that the killer used a baseball bat, but addressing the problem means addressing the problem.

Holding my breath ....

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton