Predictably, in the wake of the recent dual homicides here
on the shores of Smith Mountain Lake, VA where I live, the strident screeds for gun
control are ringing throughout the mainstream media courtesy of All The Usual
Suspects paddling around the political cesspool.
Emotions are funny, volatile things, difficult to control
under the best of circumstances. It’s
human nature to lash out illogically, unreasonably at an inanimate object that
facilitated the excruciating and painful loss of a loved one, in this case a
gun. At least Alison Parker’s father has that excuse to explain his comments
about “shaming
legislators into doing something about closing loopholes and background
checks.”
All the usual anti-gunners are using the tragedy to grab
sensational self-slobbering headlines: Obama, Hillary and our esteemed Virginia
Governor, former Clinton shill, Terry McAuliffe and the rest of the
opportunistic political class of congenital hypocrites.
It’s true: I’ve heard this song before; it’s from an old familiar
score… that, for liberals and others similarly deranged, a still unsettled score: disarming the American public despite inconvenient
things like the Bill of Rights, Natural Law, The Rule of Law, even mildly
oblique precedents from SCOTUS.
Damn their “Ayes”!
But rather than add another exercise in logic, an
over-researched, over-footnoted, over-arching piece, resplendently redundant
with credibly published facts and figures debunking the bull again, let’s take that bull by the tail
and face directly the source of a rhetorically effective byword littering the
media: Loophole.
Certainly you’ve heard or read it all before: “we must close
the gun show loophole… “…domestic violence loophole”… “…mentally deranged
loophole”…people taking psychotropic drugs looph.. “ (forget that
last one; never happened, never will but for different reasons).
Just what is a “loophole”? Where do they come from? If there
is a “loophole” in the law, how did it get there? No one knows! According to the Blowdried Set (see National
TV News Anchors) and other selected punditry, there are “tax loopholes” for the
greedy rich, “regulatory loopholes” for the greedy producers, even “Welfare and
Social Security loopholes” for those sufficiently clever and motivated to game
the system.
Webster’s says a loophole is: “an ambiguity or inadequacy in
the law or a set of rules”. Wait! What? Aren’t the geniuses who write
legislation smart enough to eliminate this never ending supply of “loopholes”?
Apparently not. Hey! Maybe loopholes aren’t born of ignorance or accident at
all! Maybe loopholes are as intentional as the law or regulation itself,
specifically designed to punish most - but not all!
If loopholes are mistakes, the Logic Free Zone of Washington,
DC and every State capital should be a ghost town tomorrow due to the epidemic
of terminal incompetence. If loopholes
are a special and intentional creation, it must take an awful lot of work and a
pile of evil. All things considered (Government + Politicians), I vote for the
latter.
Beyond the basics – “You can’t hit people and you can’t
steal their stuff”. (P.J. O’Rourke) -every law and every regulation is one more
termite gorging itself on a corner of our freedom and liberty to live our lives
freely in the pursuit of happiness.
The entity we call “Government” and the people who operate
it - whether elected, appointed or hired -do not spend their time concocting
ways and means to preserve and protect Freedom and Liberty. No, they labor
diligently, blatantly, in front of C-SPAN cameras and consistently in the
legendary ”smoke-filled back rooms ”inside the capital’s labyrinths, to eradicate
it. Benignly, we are told they are working to “keep us safe”.
From the violent violations of the 4th Amendment
to the astonishingly arrogant incompetence of the EPA, how’s exactly is that
working out?
To the sociopaths and their myrmidons in government, Liberty
is a loophole. Freedom is a loophole.
Natural Rights are loopholes, all of which must be eliminated, slammed shut
quickly, thoroughly and when necessary, inhumanely. And they will be. Because at no time in all of
mankind’s recorded history has government -any government -served any other ultimate
purpose than enslavement of its subjects, no matter how benevolent and benign
its beginnings.
Not knowing his political philosophy, at least in the apoplexy
of his justifiable rage and grief at the murder of his daughter, Mr. Parker’s
comments can be understood. Hopefully, in calmer times, he will learn and
appreciate the folly of his stated mission “to do something about crazy people
getting guns” by “shaming legislators into doing something about closing
loopholes and background checks.” Hopefully, he will understand violent
crime requires nothing more than a fist; that everything else is just a tool to
make the violence more efficient and lethal. But the crime starts and ends with
the criminal. Not the tool he uses. Hopefully, he will come to appreciate that
“shaming legislators” never produces “good laws”. Hopefully, he will see that
more intrusive incursions to preemptively punish anticipated aberrant behavior
would bring “Minority Report”
from the silver screen into a way of life.
More accurately: a way of existence.
Hopefully, Mr. Parker will come to realize all of this and
he will speak accordingly to relatives, friends, even media audiences. There is
no hope “elected leaders” will ever achieve that level of honesty.