Who Were the Sea Peoples?

Not against all sensible gun control, but against destructive nonsense passed in the emotional wake of a horrible event. (I deliberately refuse to use "tragedy" in reference to any event like Sandy Hook, because the word has its own meaning that is diluted by using it for every single happening we don't like.) In particular, pro-gun-control progressives, how will we make sure that new laws passed are not assaults on the civil rights of our already-most-assaulted demographic, poor, young black males?

Brad DeLong is disgusted with Ross Douthat for making the following assertion: "FOR a week after the Newtown shooting, the conversation was dominated by the self-righteous certainties of the American center-left…" What a crazy thing to say! No one would have jumped on an event like this to push their pre-existing policy agenda. In fact: "No, Ross Douthat. For a week after the Newtown shooting the conversation was dominated by grief, terror, and sorrow." "What kind of a sociopathic nut writes such a lead?" And we can turn to the writings of DeLong himself to show how wrong Douthat is. Look at the outpouring of sorrow and grief in the very first post he wrote relating to the shootings. Ouch, wait a second! That post had nothing to do with grief, terror, and sorrow. It was a heavily sarcastic post using the shooting to push DeLong's pre-existing policy agenda. Well, at least in his second post related to the shootings he didn't do that...

But I do know this: I don't trust anyone who pretends the following facts simply don't exist: "In 1954, there were only a dozen armed robberies in London but, by the 1990s-- after decades of ever tightening gun ownership restrictions-- there were more than a hundred times as many armed robberies. "Gun control zealots' choice of Britain for comparison with the United States has been wholly tendentious, not only because it ignored the history of the two countries, but also because it ignored other countries with stronger gun control laws than the United States, such as Russia, Brazil and Mexico. All of these countries have higher murder rates than the United States. "You could compare other sets of countries and get similar results. Gun ownership has been three times as high in Switzerland as in Germany, but the Swiss have had lower murder rates. Other countries with high rates of gun ownership and low murder rates include Israel, New Zealand, and Finla...

"Tough cases make bad law," it is often said. I suggest a corollary: extreme events make bad legislation. Adam Lanza seems to offer us a mystery (since no one seems to have any idea what drove him to this massacre) onto which everyone can project their already-arrived-at conclusions: He used a gun to commit his crimes. We need stricter gun control! He committed his crimes in a state with strict (by American standards) gun-control laws, in a place that was designed to be "gun free": so right-to-carry laws are the solution! He was home schooled (for a time): home schooling should be forbidden! He was home schooled because he had been in public schools and had had difficulties there: public schools are the problem! He played violent video games: ban violent video games! His parents were divorced: we need to promote stronger family values! This is why I reject using the immediate aftermath of such events to promote one's pre-existing agenda: even if...

OK, I am not a second amendment absolutist. (Or a first amendment absolutist, or any other amendment for that matter.) But I don't like stupid arguments wherever I find them, and here is one, courtesy of Jason Whitlock : Our current gun culture simply ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead. In the coming days, Belcher’s actions will be analyzed through the lens of concussions and head injuries. Who knows? Maybe brain damage triggered his violent overreaction to a fight with his girlfriend. What I believe is, if he didn’t possess/own a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today. OK, so Belcher killed his girlfriend when they were at home together, as far as I understand it. If he meant to kill her, he couldn't have done so with a knife, or a baseball bat, or dozens and doezens of others deadly wea...