Rational Conclusions
Which word is the more descriptive or appropriate? Is it hysterical, outrageous, irrational, unbelievable, stupid, or just politics?
The subject is the reaction to the latest massacres in El Paso and Dayton.
My jaw dropped when the media and the Socialist-Democrats immediately blamed the tragic loss of life in the Walmart in El Paso on our President. As usual, the blame throwers did not bother to look at the facts.
The Hispanic race of most of the dead and wounded was the single factor for the screamers to distinguish this tragedy from all the other school, church, and public gathering shootings.
According to these purveyors of hate for our President, the President’s repeated discussions of how the unending stream of illegal aliens across our Southern boundary is affecting the country has divided the country and spawned the white supremacy move.
None of those casting blame on our President bothered to even look at the manifesto posted by the Walmart shooter sometime before he headed for El Paso.
I read this three-page essay entitle “The Inconvenient Truth About Me.” What an eyeopener. The impeccable grammar in which it is written is better than that exhibited by a number of my students at Blinn College some years ago.
The text indicates a very smart but misguided young man. He is concerned about what corporations and automation are doing to this country, strongly opposes immigration—both LEGAL AND ILLEGAL—damage to the environment through deforestation and other means, and several other things that he thinks are leading to the country’s destruction.
There are several paragraphs of well researched features of various weapons and the results of different types of ammunition.
The third to the last paragraph is, “My ideology has not changed for several years. My opinions on automation, immigration, and the rest predate Trump and his campaign for president. I put this here because some people will blame the President and certain presidential candidates for the attack. This is not the case….”
His concluding paragraph is, “I am honored to head the fight to reclaim my country from destruction.”
After the so-called manifesto was made public, the ridiculous claim that our President caused this one of many tragedies dried up. There was not, however, a single apology for the jumps to the wrong conclusion.
The hysteria turned, instead, to doing something to prevent more public massacres. There are calls again to prohibit private ownership of assault weapons, to require background checks for the sale of every firearm, and to expand the information available on background checks.
Each of the proposals is an hysterical reaction to terrible tragedies. They are knee jerk reactions and, like all such reactions, they tend to ignore reality.
First, there is no way to get and keep assault weapons out of the hands of civilians. There are too many already in circulation. A law requiring all such weapons to be turned in would be violated by many owners and would be available on the black market or by theft. The weapons used in the Sandy Hook school shooting in New Town, Connecticut., for example, were stolen.
Second, some of the other ideas face major hurdles.
The so-called flag law call for including mental or psychological profiles of individuals considered a threat by someone in the files used for granting licenses to buy firearms.
Have those urging such action ever heard of HIPPA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996). This law is so restrictive on the release of medical records that, while I was volunteering at the front desk of the Baylor-Scott & White hospital in Brenham, I could not answer yes or no if someone asked if a certain person was a patient.
What about the doctor-patient privilege? Is HIPPA going to be amended to require physicians to broadcast the mental problems of some of their patients to police authorities?
So here’s the perspective.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of hysterical and irrational reactions to every disaster like El Paso and Dayton. It is an illustration of how such reactions are prone to flawed conclusions and recommendations.
In view of the millions of firearms already in American hands, there is no way that more massacre tragedies can be prevented. With calm rational thought, however, there may be ways to substantially reduce the number.
Let’s take a step back, take a deep breath, and try to come up with rational conclusions.
enough
